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PRINTING 
for PROFIT 



By 
CHARLES FRANCIS 

WRITTEN AFTER COMPLETING FIFTY 

TEARS OF PRINTING EXPERIENCE 

ON THREE CONTINENTS 



PUBLISHERS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

NEW YORK AND INDIANAPOLIS 

THE CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS 

PRINTING CRAFTS BUILDING, NEW YORK 



Copyright 1917 
By Charles Francis 



JAN -2 1918 



4$ 



©CI.A479816 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

By Way of Preface t 5 

Early Training and Experience 15 

Fifty Years of Printing 27 

Sketch of the Charles Francis Press 59 

Making a Profit 70 

Thoughts from Successful Printers 86 

The Printer as a Business Man ........ 99 

Profitable Financing 113 

Development of Periodicals in America 127 

The Making of a Magazine 139 

Evolution of the Trade Catalog 152 

Problems in Salesmanship 164 

Taking Orders and Holding Customers 182 

Advertising the Printing Office 194 

The Small, the Medium and the Large Plant . . . 206 

Office Management and Keeping Accounts .... 222 

Managing a Composing Room 235 

Securing Profit in Presswork 247 

Printing Ink Problems 260 

Problems in Purchasing 273 

Relations with Employees 286 

Growth of Trade Associations 303 

The Printers' League of America 315 

Estimating and Price-Making 325 

Service, Efficiency and Specialization 339 

Reciprocity 353 

Ethical Problems of the Printer 362 

Customs of the Trade 373 

Leakages, Pitfalls and Mistakes 386 

Index 399 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Portrait Frontispiece^ 

The Army Press page 11 

The Columbian Hand Press .page 17 

A Page of the Otago "Punch" .... facing page 18^ 

A "Hoe" of the Crop of 1860 page 26 

The Job of Twelve Curves page 32 

Filigree Type Composition . . .* . . . . page 33 

Specimens of "Fancy Printing" . . . facing page 35 K 

A Sample of Rule Twisting .... facing page 35^ 

Some Old Timers facing page 46^ 

Nearly Forgotten Processes .... facing page 58 

Form of Acceptance Blank facing page 186' 

Specimens of Charles Francis Press Advertising, 

facing page 196"" 

A Print Shop of Antwerp 250 Years Ago . facing page 240 x 

Part of a Modern Comfosing Room . facing page 240" 

A Blind Printer's Composition .... facing page 246 ' 

Three Interesting Union Cards . . . facing page 314 v ' 



By Way of Preface 

OF the making of books there is no end, and as it 
is almost a proverb that there is no profit or 
money to be made in the printing business, and 
as a very unique experience has fallen to my lot, I 
venture to contribute for those who wish for informa- 
tion the experiences of one who has risen from the 
ranks without monetary assistance from relatives or 
friends, except in a business way. 

Many of those who have made printing their life 
work have found few pleasures for themselves in this 
precarious occupation, yet I have found a peculiar joy 
in the business from the moment I entered as clerk in 
a stationery store at the Antipodes. 

There is and always has been an innate desire to excel 
as a workman and as an employer, and to keep a strict 
watch upon the customer's requirements; to advise 
with him if his campaign seemed wrong; not to force 
upon him the work which would be most profitable for 
the printer, but to find that happy medium which would 
best suit his particular business. 

There is a wonderful satisfaction in doing good 
printing. The general customer and the public 
appreciate the printer who does his work promptly in 
the manner desired, and many are willing to pay for 
such printing "done right and on time." So that by 
following out these lines it is made fairly profitable 
and worth the effort and ambition of any follower of 
Gutenberg. 

5 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

It has also come as a matter of experience that an 
unexpected number of friends are to be made in print- 
ing — friends among employees, friends among custom- 
ers, friends among supply people, friends among com- 
petitors. And these are prized more than the material 
reward of having been able to develop one of the 
largest and busiest printeries in the great metropolis 
of New York, in which city it is estimated that one- 
twelfth of the world's printing is produced. 

Because so many of my fellow craftsmen express 
themselves vigorously in denunciation of printing as a 
business involving much overwork, small thanks and 
less profit, I have titled this book "Printing for Profit," 
believing that it will be this view that will attract most 
readers, though for my own part, working for a money 
profit was never my preeminent idea. I believed it a 
duty to see that a profit was secured from every piece 
of printing, because of a realization that if there was 
no profit, it would sooner or later be a case for the 
sheriff. It is incomprehensible why printers should 
work at cost, much less below cost, and the arguments 
for neglecting overhead charges are wholly inconsis- 
tent. 

So I have always seen to it that a profit was charged 
on every bit of printing that went through my estab- 
lishment, even if it was not always collected. But the 
thing of most personal interest was making an effect- 
ive appeal to my prospective clientele, doing good 
printing and giving it good service. Every job 
of printing is meant to be read, and is issued in the 
hope and desire that it may produce certain results. 
The printer should ever feel a vivid interest in 

6 



BY WAY OF PREFACE 

doing his best to get, for the customer who pays for 
printing, the thing he seeks for through that printing. 
I have tried to put myself in the customer's place, and. 
consider what he wanted, and what he was trying to 
do, and sought to serve that end, as well as to do a fine 
job of printing. 

In these days this would be called the psychological 
side of printing, but to me it was simply plain common 
sense. Good paper, clear type, neat arrangement, 
sharp impression and full count are only details lead- 
ing to an end, and if that end is lost sight of the most 
beautiful specimen of art printing may be a failure. 
The printed program for a concert is obviously wasted 
if delivered when the concert is half over, and while 
the manufacturer's need for a catalog may be less 
specifically tied to a day and hour, yet he may be a 
much greater loser by delay ; hence it is apparent that 
delivery on time is quite as important as delivery of 
good quality of workmanship. 

It is not expected that the mere reading of these 
pages will enable a printer to turn a loss into a profit ; 
the work is not published with any promise of serving 
as an infallible guide to success. The purpose is sim- 
ply to record some of the principles and experiences 
which enabled the writer to build up a large business 
from the smallest sort of beginning. 

It is time that printing received its proper rec- 
ognition as one of the greatest of world industries, 
the thing that makes civilization possible, the art 
that permits cooperation among mankind. No edu- 
cation worthy of the name, no industrial progress, 
no general dissemination of knowledge, no devel- 

7 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

opment of the mechanic arts, nor of chemistry and 
science, would be possible without the art of printing 
as a basis. 

Printing is not only the third largest industry of the 
United States, but quite as important as the iron and 
steel trade, the lumber and timber business, or the 
banking and brokerage profession. It is true that the 
United States census has for some years classed print- 
ing as the sixth manufacturing industry, but this is 
through an unintentional juggling of figures that mis- 
represent conditions. The census tables themselves 
contain the information that printing ranks third, 
though that is not the classification employed by the 
U. S. Census Bureau in its Bulletins and most of its 
tables. 

The census classifications, made for general publica- 
tion, are arbitrary, made to suit the convenience of 
the compilers. In the case of meat packing and 
slaughtering, of foundries and machine shops, of lum- 
ber and timber, etc., the tabulators have included the 
value of the raw materials as a part of the industry's 
totals, while in the case of printing and publishing the 
Census Bureau has separated the chief raw materials 
(paper and pulp) and made them a different classifica- 
tion. By this system meat-packing is credited with 
the value of the animals slaughtered, which properly 
belong to the farm, and it is rated as the first indus- 
try, whereas it should be the thirteenth. In an oppo- 
site manner, printing and publishing, by exclusion of 
paper and pulp, sinks to the level of the sixth indus- 
try, when it should rate as the third manufacturing 
industry, all raw materials unconsidered. 

8 



BY WAY OF PREFACE 

One aim of the present work is to make clear the 
modern conditions surrounding printing as a manu- 
facturing industry; to demonstrate that, while it is an 
art, it has developed to such commercial proportions 
as to present broad manufacturing problems, very dif- 
ferent from those which confronted printers of the 
last century, and requiring recognition for the future 
progress of the industry. Like other manufacturing, it 
tends to specialization, and the money makers in print- 
ing today are those who have most successfully de- 
veloped some special line of work, doing it either bet- 
ter, faster or cheaper than before, and in many cases 
making progress in all three of these fundamentals of 
success. 

Nearly all printing is advertising or carries adver- 
tising, and the successful printer now must know 
something of publicity and methods of conducting 
advertising campaigns. Editions of printed matter 
have increased enormously, with the growth of this 
great country, and as our relations with the world 
broaden they will still further increase. 

The American printer of today supplies reading 
and advertising mainly for American consumption, but 
the printer of tomorrow must be prepared for the pro- 
duction of literature destined to reach the entire habi- 
table globe. Our industry, from its very nature, must 
continue to lead other industries, and upon the quality 
of our printing product will the America of the future 
be judged in the markets of the world. Let us rise to 
the occasion, and be prepared to supply a war-weary 
world not only with mental food, but the practical 
assistance which will come from the replacement of 

9 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

guns and munitions with implements of peace and in- 
dustry. Let us recognize that the printing craft here 
is the mouthpiece of all American industry, and that 
we are the advance agents of liberty and prosperity, 
destined to carry messages of practical utility to our 
brothers in other lands. 

Let us never forget that there is a higher profit than 
mere money; that the doing of good work, the spread- 
ing of constructive printed literature, often has a value 
immeasurable in dollars. Let us put that spirit into 
our work which makes for those larger benefits to 
mankind which cannot come except through right 
thoughts widely disseminated, and honest work done 
for the love of honest work. 

These opening explanations are made to guard 
against the possible first impression of the reader that 
it is only the money profit that has spurred me on to 
giving this book to my fellow craftsmen. If I write 
about myself a good deal, please remember that it is 
because I know best that which has most nearly con- 
cerned me, and not from a desire to exploit my person- 
ality, realizing that if my contribution is to be of any 
added value to the literature of printing, it must be 
through the record of facts and experiences rather 
than the promulgation of theories and impressions. 

This is primarily a business book, but I have tried 
to present everything from a standpoint higher than 
the mere coining of dollars. While recognizing the 
necessity of measuring much of the progress of our 
industry by the popular commercial standard of 
money, yet I feel that we make real progress only 
as we make our surroundings harmonious, and that 

10 



BY WAY OF PREFACE 

this always entails a development in that brotherhood 
which is willing to live and let live, which desires only 
a fair profit, and is unselfishly glad to see others also 
reaping a fair return. 

I have sought a profit not only in dollars, but in 
character, and the esteem of my fellows in the world 
of ink and types. If I have won the latter I am indeed 
rich; if only the former then am I poor. Therefore 
in urging "Printing for Profit" on the craft, I desire 
to be understood as urging profit in the broad sense 
of "Any accession or increase of good from labor and 
exertion, ,, this being the excellent definition found in 
the Standard Dictionary. 




THE ARMY PRESS, POPULAR IN 1863 
(From an old print.) 



11 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 



Early Training and Experience 

MORE than fifty years ago a long-limbed youth 
in Tasmania was invited to learn the printing 
business, and offered a salary of 2s. 6d. a week 
(62 cents) as an inducement. He took the matter home 
for consideration and digestion, talked it over with his 
mother, decided that he liked it better than compound- 
ing cathartics for a country druggist, and within a few 
days he was bound by the apprentice papers then cus- 
tomary. 

I was that lad, and can truly say after all these years, 
that I am glad I made the choice, for I like printing, 
always have liked it, and believe that is one reason why 
a certain degree of success has crowned my efforts. 

Tasmania is one of the Polynesian islands, south of 
Australia, and used to be called Van Diemen's Land. It 
is a British possession, and a lovely spot in the ocean, 
but hardly large enough for business progress, and it 
was but natural that I should move on to New Zealand, 
to London, and to the United States, where printing 
has attained its highest development. 

Fortunately they had a way in those days of trans- 
ferring apprenticeship papers, and this made it easy 
when one had learned all he could in one shop to move 
to another. In New Zealand I landed in a printing of- 
fice at Invercargill, continuing my apprenticeship work 
in the daytime for eight hours, as the shorter work- 
day was in vogue there a generation before it devel- 
oped in America. Having surplus ambition, I shortly 
took up also with a night job of feeding a cylinder 

15 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

press for a local morning paper. Thus I was on duty 
sixteen hours a day, for which I was paid the munificent 
sum of sixteen shillings a week. The night job of feed- 
ing involved lapses, however, during which I curled up 
on the feed-board and went to sleep. I believe this con- 
tinuous work was good for me, as it gave me no spare 
time to get into mischief, and while there was no great 
White Way to tempt the youth of Invercargill and 
empty his pockets, yet it tended to develop right habits 
at the formative period of my career. 

Cylinder press-feeding never was an intellectual em- 
ployment, and while it was not necessary to push down 
the sheets as rapidly in 1865 as is now required, it was 
still hard and monotonous work, and I was responsible 
for the product in a way that modern feeders are not. 
The experience has caused me ever to cherish a fellow 
feeling for the press-feeder, and to sympathize with the 
dreary character of his employment. 

Those early days were not all toil, and the office rou- 
tine was enlivened at times by the same sort of appren- 
tice-boy pranks that we see played today, and in which 
I often figured as the chief actor. We had holidays too, 
in fact New Zealand is the best country for holidays on 
the globe, and I verily believe that if conditions there 
were better understood in America we would pattern 
our civilization in many ways after the Antipodes. We 
have much to learn from them in the way of working 
out the principles of human equality. 

A healthy young fellow in his teens who loves print- 
ing can do a lot of work without wearing out, but after 
some months I had a full dose of sixteen hours per diem, 
and secured a transfer of my apprentice papers to Dun- 

16 



EARLY TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE 

edin, the capital of Otago Province, and a lively little 
city. During the happy years spent in Dunedin two 
printing offices claimed me, and I joined the printers' 
union and became a full-fledged journeyman on the 
strength of five years' (assumed) experience. A lot 
of night work must have figured as two days in one to 




THE COLUMBIAN HAND PRESS 
(From an old print.) 

make it full five years, but anyway I knew the trade, 
so far as it was known in those parts, and could set 
type with the best of them, while I held the local record 
for production on the Columbian hand press. 

Ferguson & Mitchell, of Otago, maintained a large 
office for that date, and actually had fifty hand presses. 
There are few printers either of that day or this who 
ever saw fifty hand presses in one shop. There are 

17 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

plenty of machines today with a larger output than 
these whole fifty would deliver ; still it was a large office 
for the time and place. The firm was enterprising, for 
in 1865 came the first job cylinder Wharf edale press 
imported into New Zealand. Nobody appeared to know 
how to set it up, for the makers were 16,000 miles away, 
so a volunteer was called for. Here my experience in 
feeding the cylinder at Invercargill was useful ; having 
studied the machine in my care, and observed its mech- 
anism closely. So I volunteered, and was able to get 
the machine together, and make it run satisfactorily, 
which was quite a feather in my cap, and I was 
promptly raised ten shillings a week. 

After a time the Otago Punch, a weekly illustrated 
newspaper, was looking for a printer to undertake 
its mechanical production, and the foreman I had 
worked with in Invercargill invited me to join him, and 
take over a small plant to handle the job. Some $1,500 
in money was required as my share of capital, and this 
I was able to supply partly from my savings, but mainly 
because my exercise and fad had been sculling, in which 
I was proficient as an amateur, and had accumulated 
over $1,000 in cash prizes. My success at the oar was 
so pronounced that I was invited to become a profes- 
sional, and I sometimes wonder that I resisted the call 
to my favorite sport, which at that time was much more 
profitable than printing. 

However, the money made in sculling races went 
into the little printing office, and I took my first lesson 
in business, besides doing nearly all the work on the 
paper with my own hands, even to delivering copies 
to subscribers, and when we got through was $400 in 

18 



DUXKJUX. SATI l;l)AV. JAXL AKY 



Driver. M'Lean . & Co., B. BAGLEY, 



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IMPERIAL HQT&l, 



A LITHOGRAPHED PAGE OF THE OTAGO (NEW ZEALAND) "PUNCH' 
PRINTED BY CHARLES FRANCIS IN 1866 



EARLY TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE 

debt. This was a valuable experience, and thus early 
I learned the lesson of how not to run a printing office, 
and was forever convinced that merely doing good 
printing and faithful, honest work would not insure re- 
sults without a proper system of business management 
to see that the money came in faster than it went 
out. Some further description of the Otago papers will 
be found in the chapter on "Fifty Years of Printing. ,, 

My next venture took me to the New Zealand gold- 
fields, which were then booming. There were no rail- 
ways, and I had to travel 75 miles by stagecoach, which 
was accomplished in one day by relaying horses every 
ten miles. Here I became foreman and enjoyed the 
rugged primitive surroundings quite as much as the 
work. The experiences of a mining town are not to be 
duplicated in any other sort of community. The paper 
came out Saturday mornings, and we all worked Fri- 
day night up to 3 a.m. Saturday, so that we had our 
Saturdays and Sundays free. 

Running a printing office in a land without railways, 
with the real base of supplies on the other side of the 
globe, had its disadvantages and difficulties. The mod- 
ern city printer, who can telephone to a supply house 
for anything he wants, and usually gets it in a few 
hours, can scarcely appreciate the makeshifts we had 
to resort to. On one occasion we had a bank statement 
to print, on a sheet somewhere near flatcap size, with 
large blanks in it, and a long diagonal rule running to 
the footing. I had plenty of brass rule, but practically 
no furniture, so I levied on a neighboring saloon for a 
gin-case, which was made of soft pine boards about 
five-eighths of an inch thick. I sawed these up to fill 

19 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

in my large blank spaces, and got it together satisfac- 
torily. But the job stood in" the chase for two weeks, 
and I had to sprinkle it with water every morning to 
keep the pine from shrinking and pieing the job. 

I heard of another backwoods printer who received 
an order for printing a circular label for the head of 
a flour barrel. He made a round chase of a barrel hoop, 
and printed the job without difficulty. 

When I felt that I had exhausted the possibilities of 
development in the Tuapeka Goldfields, I seized an op- 
portunity to take a sea trip around the islands, and 
landed in Melbourne, where my uncle was Premier, 
which afforded me opportunity to see and know the 
best there was in the Australian capital. I was no 
stranger there, for Melbourne was where I received 
my education, which was considered good for that time 
and locality. After a short stay among friends and 
relatives of my boyhood, I sailed for England, bidding 
a final farewell to the region of my birth, with all its 
cherished memories. 

I landed in London one foggy day in 1868, and with- 
out wasting much time on the sights of the great city, 
started out to find a job. I dare say that "Colonial" 
was written all over me, and I admit feeling a bit like 
Franklin on landing in Philadelphia, if I may be ex- 
cused for making the comparison. It will be remem- 
bered that I spent a few months with a Tasmanian 
druggist before embarking in printing. It must have 
been a harmonic feeling for dealers in pills that caused 
me to turn into Camomile street, Bishopsgate within, 
anyway it was a good turn, for at No. 35 was a print- 
shop, bearing the high-sounding title "Steam Letter- 

20 



EARLY TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE 

Press & Lithographic Printing & Stationery Ware- 
house." I entered, and was told I could have one 
or two days' work, but it stretched into a three 
years' job. 

Of the numerous experiences in this London print- 
shop, one comes to mind that well illustrates the differ- 
ence between the printing of those days and this. I 
was given a time-table to produce, the margin of which 
was filled with wood-cuts and maps. There was then 
no accurate squaring of either cuts or stereotypes. The 
job before me presented about two square feet of small 
type time-tables, with a six or eight-inch margin all 
around of irregularly formed cuts, many of them with- 
out a single straight or true side. 

When this job was set up, proof corrected and ready 
to print, I put in several hours trying to lock it up, and 
keep the tables square and make it lift. It was so un- 
certain that I was unwilling to take it off the stone, and 
called the foreman, telling him I had done my best, but 
did not want to be responsible if it pied before it got on 
the press-bed. He fooled with it for about an hour, and 
got it much more twisted than I had it, and then gave 
it up, with the remark, "Try and get it back where you 
had it before, and make it as safe as you can, and then 
we will take a chance on it." 

When I resigned, the proprietor, Frederick Straker, 
gave me a most pleasing testimonial, in which he said I 
was "exceptionally punctual." In my subsequent jour- 
neyings I always secured a good word in parting, and 
have acquired a collection of such kind words, covering 
a period of nearly half a century, in which I feel a pride 
with which the indulgent reader will sympathize. 

21 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

London did not seem to agree with me, at least that 
was the way I interpreted that "tired feeling*' which 
came over me after a full thousand hard days' work in 
the great city ; besides the yearning to see more of the 
world would not be denied ; so one day I embarked for 
America, landing at the Custom House at the Battery 
in 1872. Here I stopped ten days at the Merchants' 
hotel, on Cortlandt street, a hostelry then much patron- 
ized by commercial travelers, which long ago disap- 
peared in the crush of modern skyscrapers. Then I 
decided to go West, and soon found myself in Dubuque, 
Iowa. 

Here I had charge of the job printing department of 
the Herald, published by Ham & Carver. Why with 
such names they never chose the meat business, I was 
not informed. 

Dubuque did not seem to agree with my wife (for by 
this time I had married) , and I made another move to 
St. Paul, working for the Pioneer, and a little later was 
with the Wynne Press of Minneapolis. Feeling 
out of the line of promotion, I moved to Chicago, where 
I took charge of a small shop in a demoralized condition, 
that had fallen into the hands of a paper company, and 
succeeded in putting it on its feet, and enabling them to 
get their money out of it. The Inter-Ocean publishers 
then put me in charge of their job department, and 
it almost immediately began to yield a profit. I have 
been informed that never before were the management 
able to cash in profits from the job printing end of 
their business. 

On the Inter-Ocean I met two men, who have since 
become nationally famous in the printing world — Wal- 

22 



EARLY TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE 

ter Scott, the genial and massive press-builder, and 
F. W. Palmer, who was Public Printer for some 
years. 

I soon felt the impulse to move on from Chicago, and 
just here I find myself wondering whether the record 
of my many changes will prove tiresome to others ; its 
value seems to be that these numerous experiences gave 
me a knowledge of men and methods, that I could not 
have obtained in any other way. It is commonly said 
that "a rolling stone gathers no moss," yet I made a 
little money- or saved a little everywhere I went during 
the twenty-two years that I divided between some fif- 
teen printing offices, and I certainly picked up valuable 
acquaintances in the trade, and tested out all sorts of 
methods for running a printing plant, on all classes of 
work, and learned a long list of possible errors or 
"things not to do," that were utilized afterward to ad- 
vantage. 

From Chicago I went to Little Rock, Ark., to take 
charge of the job printing department, first of the 
Gazette and later of the Democrat, both being owned 
by the same party. For the Democrat I handled the 
newspaper State printing, and a run of job work then 
considered large, and, after three years of hustling, 
found I was run down and resigned. 

Being recuperated, I returned to Chicago, and worked 
for Knight & Leonard, also Rand, McNally & Co. Later 
I was on the famous Courier- Journal, of Louisville. 
Here a strike occurred, and I walked out with the other 
union men. The superintendent gave me a strong hint 
not to leave town, and within a week offered me a part- 
nership in the concern of C. C. Cline & Co., which I 

23 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

accepted, and was manager of the place for three years, 
this being seemingly the limit of time I could be con- 
tent anywhere. This job proved the hardest I had un- 
dertaken, for the affairs of the Company were badly 
mixed, but I managed to straighten them out, and at 
length the business was so prosperous that it was 
developed into a $100,000 corporation under the style 
of the Guide Printing and Publishing Company, and 
was taken to Cincinnati. I followed it there for fifteen 
months, and then sold out. 

The Cline success gave me a local reputation, and at 
once I had offers of a half interest in two concerns that 
needed financing. I took hold of the worst of the two, 
a printery that I will not name; as it had $30,000 debt 
and $500 of assets. There had been so much sunk that 
the parties could not afford to let go, and begged me to 
try my hand at straightening out the muddle. I guess 
I must have taken it rather from a love of handling 
trying business complications. It was certainly a lesson 
in high finance. After two years of the hardest kind of 
work the backers of the bankrupt concern themselves 
failed, and ready capital being unavailable, an assign- 
ment followed. I was made trustee, and was able to 
build the assets up to $17,000, and pay 40 cents on the 
dollar, the indebtedness in the meantime having been 
raised to $48,000, and again reduced to $23,000. It was 
an awfully hard job, but I was well paid, and quit and 
came to New York with a modest capital that looked 
quite large to me, being the most I ever had up to that 
time. 

In the big city I embarked in a railway block, switch 
and frog patent business, and it did not take long for 

24 



EARLY TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE 

my limited thousands to disappear. One morning I 
awoke to the fact that I was down to hard pan, and 
must get back to printing to make some money. I went 
with the Sonneborn printery for a few months, and 
then landed as superintendent for A. E. Chasmar & Co., 
who later came into the very front rank of high-grade 
printers in this country. At that time the Chasmar 
business only totaled $20,000 a year; when I resigned 
two years later, the figure was $50,000. On leaving I 
had a most pleasing experience. Entirely unknown to 
me, both the force of employees and my employers ar- 
ranged testimonials. The letters accompanying these 
parting gifts, signed by all in the concern, are among 
the prized records of my career. 

Next I took charge of the Moss Engraving Company's 
printing plant for a year, and then was offered the 
Stuyvesant Press, a bankrupt concern with a plant in- 
ventorying $8,300, on very easy terms, and decided to 
go into business. The concern was on the hands of the 
principal creditors, Molleson Bros/ paper house, now 
operated as Lasher & Lathrop, and I had to borrow 
$2,000 cash in addition from them to handle the busi- 
ness, thus starting with an initial debt of over $10,000. 
That was the beginning of the Charles Francis Press. 
But the story of my final success must be left to an- 
other chapter, and another pen. 

It will appear to the reader who has been interested 
enough to follow this sketch of my varied career, that I 
was possessed of wanderlust for many years, and that 
I shifted from one printery to another, and one city to 
another without sufficient reason. Perhaps this is true, 
yet at the time I always felt that each change was neces- 

25 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

sary or for the better, and I believe that I should have 
been unable to learn in any other way the principles 
which were put into operation in the Charles Francis 
Press, and which in twenty-two years developed it from 
an $8,300 plant into a concern turning out annually over 
$500,000 worth of printing. 




a "hoe" of the crop of 1860 
(From an old printer's hell box.) 



26 



T 



Fifty Years of Printing* 

HERE is an old poem, dating from 1837, that 
emphasizes the enlightening influence of that 
universal boon to man — the Printing Press : 

"When Liberty first sought a home on the Earth, 

No altar the goddess could find, 
Till art's greatest triumph to Printing gave birth 

And her temple she reared to the mind; 
The phantoms of Ignorance shrank from her sight, 

And Tyranny's visage grew wan, 
As wildly he traced, in the Volume of Light, 

The pledge of redemption to man!" 

It is an interesting fact that the art of typography, 
in the four hundred and odd years from Gutenberg to 
1866, made less progress than it has in the half cen- 
tury just closed. It is true that fifty years ago we had 
typefounders casting accurate types, though without 
system as to bodies, and we had cylinder presses of a 
sort, and job presses capable of a neat impression; but 
there simply was no tasteful display, no harmony of 
type faces, and no art in job work, while the news- 
papers were mostly primitive affairs from the modern 
viewpoint. The magazine was just gaining a foothold, 
and was no more mechanically attractive than the news- 
paper. Machine composition was yet a dream, and 
hand-set type was not considered used up until, as the 
old joke goes, it was "worn down to the second nick." 

AT THE ANTIPODES 

The town of Dunedin, New Zealand, was where my 
experience began. As the capital of a province, it 



*Reproduced largely from a lecture delivered in 1916 and 1917 
in several cities. 

27 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

was of some local importance, and supported four 
daily newspapers, which was the more remarkable 
from the fact that there were probably not a full dozen 
daily newspapers in the country at that date, 1866. 

The type of the Otago Daily Times, the leading 
morning newspaper, was distributed by a force of 
compositors in the afternoon hours from the forms 
of the early edition. The typesetters came on at seven 
o'clock in the evening, and worked until two or three 
in the morning. Before printing, the paper was 
"dipped," that is a quire at a time was passed quickly 
through a trough of clean water, and laid out flat in 
a pile. When the pile for the edition was complete a 
wet blanket was thrown over it, and in a few hours 
the moisture was evenly distributed throughout the 
pile, and the paper was ready to print. 

The first newspaper job that I set up and printed, 
doing almost all of the work myself, was a weekly that 
bore the name Otago Punch. This should not be con- 
strued as the sort of punch most popular today. It 
was an enterprising little paper, carrying four pages 
of lithoed illustrations, and patterned after its name- 
sake, The London Punch. The pictures pertained 
largely to local politics, and the drawings were all 
made on transfer paper, while the type for the picture 
pages was first printed on transfer paper, so that one 
entire form might be printed from the lithographic 
stone. The eight type pages were printed on a Colum- 
bian hand press of English manufacture, of the sort 
that could be depended upon to register within a half 
inch. I pulled the lever, and felt that I was going some 
when I pulled more than 250 impressions in an hour; 

28 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

once I printed 495 impressions in one hour with the 
aid of a fly-boy and a roller-boy. Though the edition 
of the Otago Punch was limited to about 1,000 copies, 
I think the paper compared favorably with American 
weeklies of the same date. From the reproduction it 
will be seen that the typography was in the taste that 
prevailed in England during the sixties and seventies. 

TRULY PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS 

Though presses and type could be bought fifty years 
ago as readily as now, by any one who had the money, 
yet a great variety of modern printing office conveni- 
ences were undeveloped. The printer had to cast his 
own rollers, a great iron pot being put on a stove to 
cook the glue and molasses to the proper consistency. 
A printer's education was incomplete unless he knew 
how to make a proper mixture of the compound, and 
how to pour it; he also had to know how to make his 
own lye from wood ashes, and commonly built his own 
imposing stones, topped with slabs supplied by the local 
tombstone maker. Racks and standing galleys were 
usually made by some home carpenter, under the print- 
er's guidance, and labor-saving furniture was unknown. 
A real type cabinet I never saw until 1870, and chases 
were commonly imperfect, the product of the local 
blacksmith shop. 

We had a tool called a sheepsfoot, from its appear- 
ance. It was designed to pry under and lift a heavy 
form from a press-bed, but it often served as a success- 
ful type batterer. The steel shooting-stick was also 
handy to lay on a type form and knock the dots off the 
i's. Some of the older printers may remember the italic 

29 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

shooting-stick, that served a useful purpose in giving 
exercise to the legs of the latest printers devil, when 
not too busy hunting type lice and strap oil. 

The printers of 1866 paid a fabulous price for ink, 
getting what we would call a common grade of news. 
Card ink, the equivalent of modern job black, sold for 
from $1 to $3 a pound, while the colored inks brought 
from $5 to $32 a pound. And we did not call the ink 
men robbers at that. 

The paper used was practically all soft-faced rag 
paper, strong and tough, and vastly more durable than 
the modern product. Such a thing as printing it dry 
was then rare. It was expected to suck up the ink on 
the blotting-paper principle, and there being no dryer 
in the ink, the quicker it sucked in, and the more it held 
the lampblack and oil, the less was the danger of smut 
or offset. 

The ordinary drum cylinder press was covered with 
a soft, thick, rubber blanket, and as the form was sure 
to contain more or less worn type, the method of bring- 
ing up the impression was a very simple one, involving 
only plenty of squeeze. Making ready was a refinement 
not then named. What was regarded as really fine 
work was printed on the hand press. 

The styles of type of this early period seem unique 
today. Aside from the body faces and a few gothics 
that have survived, there was a development of fancy 
faces which were regarded as the acme of beauty, but 
which modern taste condemns as wholly inartistic. The 
type designers undertook to ornament the surface or 
framework of the letters, making of each character 
something like what we now call an ornamental initial. 

30 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

Large letters would be a mass of intricate quirls and 
filigree work. The engraved picture title was imitated 
by the typefounder and ornamental combination bor- 
ders were in common use for perhaps a generation. 

When it is remembered that in the sixties we had 
neither the smooth-surfaced papers nor cardboards of 
today, nor inks adapted to quick-drying, that our cylin- 
der presses did not have register racks, nor permit a 
sharp impression without punching the type deep into 
the paper, that we had no series of display faces, but 
mongrel assortments of inharmonious and wonderfully 
intricate faces, and that to cap it all we had no con- 
ception of art in printing, no uniform or standard of 
bodies in type, it is small wonder that we produced 
nothing to compare with the modern output. 

The so-called fine or fancy job work was turned 
out on small platen presses, of which the Gordon job- 
ber was the best known. A packing of paper and card- 
board formed the tympan, and there was a little at- 
tempt on the part of the more clever workmen to pre- 
vent the print or impression from showing through on 
the back. Fine work was run through a hot press to 
remove all impression. Quads were pasted on the job 
press tympan to feed to, there being no gauge-pins, and 
the left hand side gauge was very commonly a mere 
pencil mark. There were no job press fountains, the 
ink being supplied to the disk at occasional intervals by 
a hand brayer. 

CURVED LINES AND RULE-TWISTING 

Early efforts at "fancy" printing, as we used to term 
it, for some years centered around the use of curved 

31 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

lines. Some fellow discovered that leads could be bent, 
and that with paste, chewed paper or plaster of paris, 
even several curved lines could be introduced into a 
job, and the type made to "lift," so as to bear 
printing. Plaster of paris invariably left a lot of grit in 
between the type that was very difficult to wash out, 
and caused trouble by type dropping or pulling out of 



C.W ,Y9 °f> atUl $Of ^ fit 





, SPECIALTIES 



I 13© UKS ST., CHICA60, / 



^OMA^ALTHR p^-;5 



THE JOB OF TWELVE CURVES 

the form. About 1875 the curved line craze was at its 
height; the sample here shown was produced in the 
Inter-Ocean office in Chicago in that year. It was con- 
sidered remarkable that this card was composed in only 
five hours, including lock-up, and sent to press without 
plaster of paris. In this instance the customer set the 
style, for the work was produced in imitation of his 
drawing. 

In connection with the filigree faces of type, there 
came into fashion numerous series of very complex com- 
bination borders, many of which were individually 

32 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

beautiful, as the famous ribbon border, remembered 
by all printers whose memories go back into the seven- 



#P^P^II 



■.•-.-.• 



iTAD^isura ioia. 



~^ DAILY ».WE EKLY.^D 



K 




*;>%} 



TKS OHIY DEMOCRATIC PAPER PUBLISHED AT TSS CAPITAL 
SPECIMEN C,OPIES SENT FREE. 

W'daniS £. Sfoc/wt; S'lop'i, 

little eock; a^k. 



FILIGREE TYPE COMPOSITION — SHOWING FACES 
POPULAR IN THE "70's" 

ties. The tendency was to employ them much too freely. 
Portions of these borders could be grouped as tints, 
and this opened the way for innumerable ornate and 
colored combinations of rules, borders, tints and types. 

33 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The Arkansas Gazette job, illustrated herewith, was 
produced in Little Rock in 1878, as an insert for the 
local directory, and it fairly represents the colored bor- 
der effects sought in that period. 

The average job compositor of those days was much 
like he is now in his desire to produce something new 
and novel, something to surpass other productions, and 
the curve-line idea having once got a start, spread far 
and wide. It was taken up by the type founders, who 
manufactured what were called curved quads, being 
made in pairs, with a curved surface on one side and 
rectangular notches on the other side, so that lines set 
between the curved opposite surfaces could be locked 
up solid, metal to metal, in the form. The art of the 
curve artist survived only a few years. In modern 
practice, when curves are wanted, the pen and ink 
artist, cooperating with the zinc etcher, supplies a 
vastly more artistic result at less cost. 

All art is an evolution, and the progress of printing 
art can be traced by taking the files of the older trade 
papers or the specimen sheets of the typefounders for 
a period of years. In the library of the American Type 
Founders' Co. in Jersey City the curious printer will 
find a most interesting record of progress from the 
crude ideas of early American typos, through the fili- 
gree period, the curve period, the border and tint pe- 
riod, and all the other fads that led up to the modern 
dignified and substantially beautiful productions. These 
"crazes" or "fads" are now remembered only by the 
older printers, who lived through them, but the younger 
generation can study them only by looking over collec- 
tions. 

34 




A SAMPLE OF RULE-TWISTING 
(The original was in three colors.) 




T 



^ D ^S & BLOCH^ 



Pn/rlltui Arkaasti Suiiii. 



BLANK BOOK MANUFACTURERS. 

LITTLE ROCK, ^.mC^ft-IsrS^^S. 

£ar$e6t «* Jforf £omj>(ete Jot fyfict « Sindeiy in the Southmit. 



GAZETTE. 



COMBINATION BORDERS AND FILAGREE TYPE, 1878. 
SPECIMENS OF "FANCY" PRINTING 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

From the funeral pyre of the curve craze there arose 
phoenix-like the still more abnormal rule-twisting craze. 
Some ingenious compositor discovered that with thin 
brass rule he could form curlicues and wiggles, and mix 
them in with the types, and he got credit for doing artis- 
tic work. He soon had many imitators, and then the 
supply houses, scenting an opportunity to sell more 
brass rule and rule-cutters, boomed the twisting 
craze, and even went to selling special nippers and 
curving machines with which to twist and curl the 
rules. 

Rule-twisting is now of principal interest only as a 
step in the development of artistic typography. It ran 
its course and was dropped at the dawn of the photo- 
engraving era, because it was overdone, and the gain in 
effect by no means compensated for the extravagant 
waste of time and material. So it was gradually frozen 
out, to the great regret of many a budding type artist. 
The sample of rule-twisting here shown was produced 
originally in colors in Louisville, Ky., in 1882, when this 
art of destroying material and wasting time was at its 
height. I had to cut the tints as well as the rules my- 
self. Every job compositor then had a set of engraving 
tools. The incoming of zinc etching showed the printer 
a far better and cheaper way of securing artistic re- 
sults only approached by the rule-twister. 

THE PHOTO-ENGRAVING PERIOD 

The cheap mechanical production of pictures by the 
photo-gelatine process and the ruled glass screen re- 
sulted in the modern half-tone plate. This process, to- 
gether with the photographing of drawings direct on a 

35 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

zinc plate, and etching and routing them for mounting 
and direct printing, was the basis of the photo-engrav- 
ing business, and this art marks the point of departure 
from the old ideas of printing to the modern truly taste- 
ful product. Up to 1885 the woodcut was supreme in 
the field of illustration, and its high cost — about 
$5 an inch for the best work — was prohibitive for 
general commercial printing. The photo-engraver 
carved the way to a new era, which opened up 
along several different but harmonious lines of 
development. 

The advent of the half-tone picture called for dry, 
hard-surfaced paper, and this meant a hard printing 
surface instead of the rubber blanket on the cylinder. 
So came about the era of hard packing and a deal of 
fancy overlaying and underlaying of cuts to bring them 
to perfection. This in turn called for heavier presses, 
and the multiplicity of half-tones demanded better ink 
distribution. The result was the discarding of the old 
drum cylinder press, and also dispensing with the 
Adams book press. These were outclassed first by the 
stop-cylinder, and later by the two-revolution, which 
has been so highly developed. 

Thus the printing business experienced within a few 
years a radical change in engravings, an entirely new 
line of papers, as well as new presses, so that the com- 
bination almost revolutionized the mechanical opera- 
tions of the trade. About this time the point system of 
type bodies was adopted, doing away with the irregular 
sizes previously in vogue. Right upon the heels of these 
radical changes came composing machinery, completely 
overturning methods of type composition. 

36 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 
MACHINE TYPESETTING A SUCCESS 

About 1882 the Thorne typesetting machines got a 
foothold in New York, and various good offices used 
them with reduced costs. The Empire and MacMillan 
typesetting machines also came into some use in Amer- 
ica, while the Fraser in England and the Kastenbein in 
Germany each served a part in demonstrating that the 
machine could win out against the hand compositor. 
It was at this time, 1886 to 1888, that the slug machine 
came to the front, and the printing world was exer- 
cised for a time over the possibilities of the Rogers 
and the Mergenthaler machines. The trade papers 
of the period were filled with announcements of the 
accomplishments of the linotype and the typograph. 
Out of this chaos of invention, and after many lawsuits, 
the linotype came into the limelight sponsored and 
owned very largely by a circle of newspaper proprietors 
who were the first to recognize its merits. 

As we all know, the Mergenthaler linotype machine 
won out under the guidance and with the business and 
mechanical acumen of Philip T. Dodge, first capturing 
the field of the large daily newspapers, which were sat- 
isfied with the crude work of the earlier machines be- 
cause of greatly reduced costs; and, through steady 
improvement in the quality of the output, gradually 
working into the book and job printing offices, and final- 
ly coming to be accepted as all that was desirable both 
in fine work and low cost. The linotypes have now at- 
tained a general utility undreamed of in the earlier 
years of machine composition. 

As the half-tone plate revolutionized the pressroom, 
the linotype has revolutionized the composing room, 

37 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

substituting the line instead of the individual type as 
the unit. One operator sets as much type as five or six 
men can do by hand, and takes up less floor space, while 
the solid slugs make easier handling on the stone, and 
permit a much larger quantity of type to be kept stand- 
ing for the customer's convenience. One machine, run 
by one man, now handles half a dozen faces at once, and 
changes of measure, face, and body are made with ease. 

In the old days books were printed by setting up 32 to 
64 pages, sending proofs of these to the author for cor- 
rection, then printing two to four forms as the case 
might be, returning the type to the cases, and setting up 
another section. In few offices was it possible to set up 
more than 64 pages at a time, because of the value of 
the type tied up in a book. 

Since the linotype came to be generally used for book 
composition it has been possible to set up a large book 
complete in a few days, and the entire work can 
be put through the printery in the same time 
that was formerly occupied in handling a 64-page sec- 
tion of a book. 

The magazines have found the linotype quite as 
valuable as the book publishers. Through their 
use monthly magazines are now manufactured much 
after the manner of a daily newspaper. A magazine 
printery, such as the Charles Francis Press, which is- 
sues some magazine every business day, moves with the 
accuracy of clockwork. The editors send in batches of 
copy, with orders that the proofs be returned within 
five or six hours, and day and night shifts of linotypes 
and proofreaders are necessary to meet their demand 
for haste. 

38 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

The advertising forms are closed by a time clock 
almost as positively as with a great daily paper. Thus 
the linotype has made it possible for magazines of large 
circulation to use up-to-date articles in their reading 
pages and keep open for advertising until within a day 
or two of the date of issue. The late models have so 
many improvements and conveniences, providing for 
rapid changes of all sorts, for handling corrections eco- 
nomically, etc., that on moving into the Printing Crafts 
Building the management of the Charles Francis 
printery deemed it good policy to throw out its old 
linotype machines and install an entirely new plant of 
the latest construction, resulting in an improved ef- 
ficiency of 20 per cent, and in some classes of work 30 
per cent. 

Along the closing years of the nineteenth century an- 
other move for assisting mechanical composition was 
made. For certain classes of composition there exists 
and apparently always will exist a demand for individ- 
ual movable types. Into this field came the monotype, 
casting and setting single type in lines, and spacing 
them evenly and accurately. Like the linotype it pro- 
duces a new face of type at every operation, and dis- 
tribution is accomplished by throwing the used type 
back into the melting pot. It is claimed by the Mono- 
type Company that their letters are more clear cut than 
others, and that tabular and difficult matter can be more 
easily produced by their machines. There is the disad- 
vantage, however, of having to employ two machines 
for the complete operation. One machine, much like a 
typewriter, perforates a strip of paper, and this paper 
strip being rolled and carried to the typecaster, and 

39 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

inserted tail end first, makes and sets up the type back- 
wards. 

The perforated paper strip can be used several times 
over to repeat the composition, if desired. This can 
also be done with the linotype, by duplicating the cast- 
ing and afterward separating the lines. The monotype 
has been for some years in universal use alongside the 
linotype, and both have their individual points of ex- 
cellence. 

One of the later developments of monotype activities 
is the bringing of the typecaster direct into the printing 
office, making the large printer his own founder. The 
monotype demonstrated the advantage of having an in- 
exhaustible supply of type sorts convenient to the com- 
posing room, and this company put out a casting ma- 
chine, which also produces quads, rules, and slugs. An- 
other typecaster which has attained considerable promi- 
nence, and which is at least the equal of the monotype 
caster, is the Thompson typecaster, used in many large 
printing offices to keep the cases full of display type. 
Still other casters are on the market, and it appears 
that the larger printeries are now established as mak- 
ing a large proportion of their own type. 

THE COMPOSING OR IMPOSING ROOM 

The detail of the composing room has undergone a 
change scarcely less radical than the substitution of 
the machine for the type-case. The hand-man has be- 
come largely a maker-up or assembler, and his depart- 
ment might more properly be styled an imposing room. 
He has to set from cases little but headings, large dis- 
play and odd things not well adapted to the machine. He 

40 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

works with labor-saving material of all sorts. The es- 
tablishment of the point system of bodies made possible 
a development of uniform sizes of slugs and rules, 
adapted to fit in perfectly with the type. The slug and 
rule caster makes it easy to produce these in quantities 
at low cost. With both wood and metal furniture of 
known sizes, time is no longer wasted on the stone. 
We still use the term stone, though the iron or steel 
imposing table has taken its place, just as the steel stick 
replaced the wooden stick. 

LABOR-SAVING STEEL EQUIPMENT 

The Hempel quoin, now over 40 years old, was the 
forerunner of steel conveniences for the form; then 
came steel furniture for filling in blanks in either form 
or press-bed. Latterly the "cut cost" steel equipment is 
driving out wooden stands, cabinets and sort boxes, and 
making a miniature composing room of every alley, as 
the spaces between the stands are called. Another val- 
uable metal adjunct is the steel block with adjustable 
catches for fastening all sizes and shapes of electros, so 
that they may be readily and certainly positioned for 
register or color work. 

Imposition, which is the proper arrangement of pages 
on the stone, has also undergone many changes. Fifty 
years ago, a 32-page form was almost the conceivable 
limit, and the folding by hand required only one style 
of arrangement for a 32, one for a 24, another for a 
16, a 12, an 8 and a 4. All these could be learned in 
a couple of hours, so that any compositor could be a 
make-up man. But the introduction of large forms and 
folding machines of numerous styles has resulted in an 

41 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

almost infinite variety of make-ups, requiring a mathe- 
matical artist who specializes in the placing of pages to 
know how to lay them out. 

Large cylinder presses and correspondingly large size 
sheets have made the printing of 64 pages at a time a 
common matter, and as such a sheet is too bulky for 
folding it is commonly made up so as to be sliced into 
16s, which may be accomplished in several different 
ways, according to the folders used, and involving a 
special make-up in each instance. When one remem- 
bers that there are also 128s, 48s, 40s, 24s, 20s, 12s, 
besides long 16s, long 32s, and an almost endless choice 
of combination among these, it is apparent that imposi- 
tion has become a specialty. 

IN THE PRESSROOM 

In 1866 a very large proportion of job printing was 
done on Washington hand presses and small job presses, 
as the sentiment of that time was that it was impossible 
to do a fine piece of presswork at such an incredible 
speed as 800 an hour. There were a few cylinder presses 
in use and double cylinders and three-revolutions, most- 
ly for newspaper printing or posters, and some of them 
were run by steam power, but more of them were run 
by hand power, a fly-wheel and crank being supplied 
for operation by some poor "husky." My, but it was 
tough work, and it used up the laborers who could be 
induced to tackle it, so that often young printers in 
an office had to take turns at the wheel. 

There were also a lot of odd machines, of which the 
Army press (see p. 11) is typical. These presses were 
altogether different from the beautifully finished and 

42 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

accurately designed cylinder machines of today, and 
would look very crude to a modern printer. They were 
built light, with a railway track underneath the bed, 
and a tumbling pinion that reciprocated the bed, giving 
it a sharp reversal. Usually there were no springs, and 
if speeded up, as was sometimes the case in newspaper 
offices, they went to pieces rapidly. Two form rollers 
were considered quite sufficient, and register was ques- 
tionable until Andrew Campbell gave the trade the big 
wheel press with bed and cylinder so locked together 
that register was positive. The first fine color work I 
know of produced by cylinders was done on Campbell 
presses in the old McLoughlin Brothers shop, in Brook- 
lyn, where school books were produced. The Campbell 
country press was the first low-priced cylinder machine 
in this country, and in its day was sold to about two- 
thirds of the country printers of the United States. The 
Campbell complete press and book and job press were 
worthy successors. 

FROM HAND PRESS TO WEB PERFECTER 

The book work of the forties and fifties came largely 
from the Washington hand press. The first really fine 
book work was done on the Adams presses, built by 
Hoe. These gave register, fair distribution, and per- 
mitted make-ready, and were so efficient that some of 
them survived into the present century in the great 
printing plants of Harpers and DeVinne, and at this 
writing there are a few in use in Boston. They were 
more than twice as speedy as the hand press, readily 
running 500 to 600 an hour for the large sizes. 

Besides the Hoes, the manufacturers of drum cylin- 

43 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

der presses in the United States about fifty years ago 
were A. B. Taylor, Cottrell & Babcock, Andrew Camp- 
bell, and C. Potter, Jr., most of the product being for 
country newspapers, though a sale was beginning for 
city job offices. The Wharfedale printing press, man- 
ufactured in England, supplied a similar field there, and 
was exported to Australia and New Zealand. The first 
cylinder press brought into New Zealand for other than 
newspaper work was a Wharfedale, which I set up there 
in 1865 or 1866. At the same period Germany was 
turning out cylinder presses from the factory of Koenig 
& Bauer, who are to the printing fraternity of the 
Fatherland what Hoe is to America. 

With two exceptions these drum cylinders of fifty 
years ago were largely based on the principles made 
successful by D. Napier, of England, who took out pat- 
ents in 1825 to 1830, and introduced the well-known 
railroad bed movement. The exceptions were Koenig & 
Bauer, who mounted their beds on a four-wheeled truck 
for reciprocation, and Andrew Campbell, who was al- 
ways original in his inventions and manufactured a 
nearly "fool-proof " machine well suited to the times and 
conditions. 

OTHER FAMOUS PRESS-BUILDERS 

Walter Scott began building printing presses in 
Plainfield,N. J., over 40 years ago, and developed a long 
line of improved machinery, from country cylinders to 
complex web perfecters and lithographic presses. He 
was a man of most striking appearance, weighing 250 
pounds and having a handsome beard that came to his 
waistband. He is credited with taking out more pat- 
ents than any other designer of printing machinery. 

44 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

The Acme and Fairhaven presses attained some sale 
in New England after the Civil War period. 

About 40 years ago the Whitlock press appeared, at 
Birmingham, Conn., as a very light machine employing 
the Henry bed movement, a vastly different thing from 
the Premier press that they are introducing so widely 
today. The Taylors built cylinders, three-revolutions 
and double cylinders, mostly following the Hoe designs, 
but lacking originality, dropped out. Cottrell & Bab- 
cock separated, and we have now the fine line of maga- 
zine presses and the rotary color press developed by the 
second generation of Cottrells, while the name of Bab- 
cock survives in the well-known Optimus machine. 

As a better quality of work was demanded, the stop 
cylinder appeared, which was heralded as the perfect 
registering press because the cylinder stopped to take 
the sheet. But hustling American printers could not 
long be satisfied with a press that stopped at every im- 
pression, and gradually the more rapid two-revolution 
began to take its place. The demand for still better and 
stronger cylinder machines, with improved ink distribu- 
tion, caused a still further development, and in the early 
nineties the Huber and the Miehle Companies brought 
out two-revolution machines that largely outclassed 
their rivals, and set new high marks for press-builders. 
Miehle deserves credit for bringing about the perfec- 
tion of bed movements, driving the bed with an even 
motion and reversing it with a pure crank motion, and 
it was this ideal construction, together with minor all- 
around improved detail, that gave this press such a 
pronounced lead in the press market. In recent years the 
two-color machine has brought them increased prestige. 

45 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

R. Hoe & Co. of New York and Marinoni of Paris 
built hand-fed type-revolvers and stereo machines 50 or 
60 years ago. Hoe & Co. practically abandoned the two- 
revolution press field 25 years ago, being engrossed in 
the manufacture of web newspaper presses, in which 
they were followed by Scott, Goss, and more recently 
by the Duplex Company of Battle Creek. C. B. Cottrell 
& Sons Co. were among the first to recognize the need 
for a web perfecting press which would do a higher 
grade of printing than the then-existing newspaper web 
machine. Hoe also built slow-running magazine web 
presses, and Scott and Goss provided many ingenious 
mechanisms that have come into use. For numerous 
improvements in this field the trade is indebted to Mr. 
Seymour of the Goss Printing Press Co. The original 
Hoe perfecter of 1873 was equipped for fly delivery, 
which limited its speed. 

Walter Scott & Co. have built an all-size rotary since 
1881, and their sheet-fed rotary also fills a useful place. 
A recent addition to rotary printing is the United Print- 
ing Machinery Co.'s two-sheet rotary press. This unique 
machine utilizes two feeding devices, and will print 
two different large forms at the same time from curved 
plates, having double delivery. One or both sheets may 
be slit on the press, and the half sheets satisfactorily 
jogged. The tripping of impression of one form of cyl- 
inder does not interfere with the printing of the other 
form. High grade work is produced at a speed of 5,000 
per hour. 

A variety of other rotary machines have been mar- 
keted, too many to catalog here, but one of these re- 
quires mention. The Cottrells have lately perfected 

46 




MARINON1S 6-SHEE1 STEREO PRKSS, 1860-1 





SOME OLD TIMERS 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

a multicolor rotary press that prints four colors at one 
operation from the web, delivering a very excellent 
product in absolute register. 

PLATEN AND JOB PRESSES 

The Gordon and the Degener (Liberty) platen presses 
held the world's market fifty years ago, having replaced 
several cruder machines, as the Ruggles. Their great 
merit was simplicity, and the Gordon which has sur- 
vived has done so because it is the simplest of the many 
designs of the talented George P. Gordon, the father of 
the Chandler & Price press, which has the distinction 
of enjoying the largest output of any press ever built 
for printing. 

The cylinder type of distribution for Job presses was 
first conspicuous in the Globe press, which gave way 
before the Gaily Universal machine, this in turn grad- 
ually relinquishing the field to the Thompson press, 
made by the Colt's Armory people, which appears to be 
the acme of strength, and combines all the fine printing 
qualities of the larger cylinder machines. The rotating 
disk presses have been innumerable, and two of these 
which are highly developed deserve note here, the Gold- 
ing and the Prouty. 

Within recent years there have come into use such a 
variety of rapid platen and job cylinder machines that 
it is impossible to even enumerate them, much less to 
expatiate upon their respective merits. Some are built 
entirely for speed, others for quality, or for embossing, 
and still others for labor-saving. Most of these are self- 
feeders or automatic or semi-automatic machines. 
Among them may be mentioned the Standard press of 

47 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

Wood & Nathan, the Autopress, Kelly, Osterlind, New- 
Era, Stokes & Smith, etc. 

The Harris presses are in a class by themselves. They 
came into favor twenty years ago, supplying the gap 
between the rapid large web press and the slower single 
sheet jobbers. By mounting curved electros on a cyl- 
inder, and using an automatic feed, they attained a high 
speed, and the chief difficulty of the first users of these 
machines was to find enough work to keep them busy. 
Encouraged by their first success with a small machine 
chiefly useful for envelope work, the Harris people set 
to work building larger and more complicated machines, 
extending their field of usefulness, and finally estab- 
lished their present full series of small cylinder auto- 
matic rotaries. 

The latest important development in machinery for 
fine printing is unquestionably the Offset press. This 
machine naturally belongs to the lithographer, but as 
in the days gone by, and even now in Europe, the litho 
and letterpress-printer combine the two methods of 
production in certain high-class work, it seems likely 
that we may again close the gap, and work more in uni- 
son, lithographic and typographic effects being obtained 
in the same establishment. The Offset press not only 
produces a very attractive grade of printing, but per- 
mits illustrated effects of great beauty on paper of low 
cost, that is, thin non-surfaced paper, and is therefore 
adapted to the printing of illustrated catalogs that 
are issued in great numbers. It offers special conveni- 
ence for combining text and illustrations, and is gener- 
ally regarded as destined to a much-extended field of 
usefulness. 

48 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 
LACK OF SKILLED ARTISTIC PRESSMEN 

I cannot dismiss this all too brief resume of the 
growth of the printing press in the half century, with- 
out referring to the scarcity of proper instruction in the 
better classes of presswork. There are now so many 
complex and ingenious special printing machines that it 
is hard enough to find men who understand more than 
two or three different kinds of presses, let alone finding 
those that are naturally artists in presswork. Such 
wonderful effects are now being produced by the com- 
bination of real art with the best presswork, that it is 
highly regrettable there exists so little opportunity for 
making more art pressmen. Practically the only school 
for pressmen exists in Rogersville, Tenn., and is run by 
the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' 
Union. It would be a step forward if the employers' as- 
sociations and this union could agree on a method of 
providing such instruction in New York and perhaps 
other large cities. 

THE ART OF THE PLATEMAKER 

Although electrotyping was known fifty years ago, it 
was not practised, and in 1866 the book printers of Lon- 
don and New York stereotyped their pages to preserve 
them for the printing of further editions. Probably the 
volume of book printing was then less than five per 
cent, of what it is now, and the demands for really long 
runs did not exist. While stereotyping has proved the 
solution of the rapid newspaper press problem, it is too 
coarse and crude for fine printing, and the art of elec- 
trotyping which had its beginnings in the copper-facing 
of type and cuts, came to be a recognized industry about 

49 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

1870. Since that date it has advanced rapidly, and is 
now the accepted method of duplicating indefinitely for 
innumerable printings at different times and places. 
If a million copies of a circular are to be printed from 
the one original type form, as many electros as desired 
may be produced, to start any desired number of presses 
on the job, or to permit several to be printed up at one 
impression on large sheets. The highest grade of en- 
gravings can be so exactly duplicated that only experts 
can discover the difference of printing from these and 
from the originals, and, since nickel and steel facing 
came in, it is possible to make electros so durable as 
to exceed all demand for long runs. 

The convenient curved electrotype has made possible 
the magazine web presses and Harris machines, and 
without this art the beautifully illustrated magazine 
of large circulation would be impossible. 

IMPROVEMENTS IN FOLDING, FEEDING AND BINDING 

Up to 1880 nearly everything in the pamphlet bind- 
ing line was done entirely by hand, as stitching, gather- 
ing and covering. While a small proportion of these 
operations are performed in the same way today, great 
editions are turned out entirely by machinery, which 
has come about through the quantities of work called 
for by the consumer. In these days the curved electro- 
plates of a magazine are placed upon a web printing 
press, and the roll of paper is printed, cut off, brought 
together, folded and ends cut in front, before leaving 
the press. The product is then taken over to the bind- 
ing machine, which at one operation gathers signatures, 
wire-stitches and covers the magazine, and counts them 

50 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

out in fives at the rate of 2,500 or 3,000 per hour, mak- 
ing only two operations from the time the work leaves 
the platemaker. 

All this has been made possible by the perfection of 
folding and gathering machinery. The paper-folding 
machine was born late in the sixties, though folders 
were not common until about 1880. They were devel- 
oped as separate machines, and at first their work was 
regarded as irregular and inferior to hand folding; 
but gradually the principles of handling paper became 
better understood and it was found practicable to print 
larger and larger forms of both magazines and books, 
depending upon the folders to bring the pages together. 
The invention of the rotary folder was one of the things 
which made possible the fast web perfecting presses. 
The perfection of the paper-feeding machine has re- 
duced labor, saved time, saved paper, and developed a 
uniform product. 

The folder has undergone a transformation, largely 
through the inventive genius of Talbot C. Dexter, be- 
ginning with the simple little machines, that were hand- 
fed, and which passed a sheet by doubling between roll- 
ers two or three times, and culminating with the large 
machines combined with wire-stitchers, so that both the 
body and cover of a publication can be automatically fed 
into the same machine and delivered complete and 
counted. Jobbing folders have come to be built to meet 
a variety of demands, so that now the Dexter Com- 
pany, with offices in all the large cities of the United 
States, provides a folder for every class of printing. 
The small shop can use a circular folder, such as the 
Cleveland, to advantage, just as well as the big shop can 

51 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

run a battery of large folders on a large edition, and 
turn it out in a few days' time. 

Cloth binding has made advances as great as paper 
binding. The cloth book bindery is now a large institu- 
tion, often with from $30,000 to $100,000 worth of 
machinery. Where the workers used to laboriously fold 
the sheets by hand with a ruler, they are fed automati- 
cally to the folding machines, and a large edition may be 
folded in a day. The hand gatherer's job is gone, and 
with it his inaccuracies, for one no longer finds sections 
of a book or magazine transposed or omitted. The gath- 
ering machine does not blunder, but brings together the 
sections of a book with unerring accuracy. Where the 
workman with a shears and glue-pot used to form his 
cover by hand, the casing machine, from a roll of cloth 
and a pile of paper boards, now automatically turns 
out some 2,500 copies per hour. 

Ornate designs in several colors of ink or foil are 
stamped at surprisingly low cost, with gorgeous effects. 
Good cloth-bound books have been made for seven cents 
each that formerly cost for binding four to five times 
that figure, the gain being mainly in the substitution of 
machinery for hand labor. In leather binding the ma- 
chine work has also made it possible to retail the hand- 
somest books in sets at $1 a copy, that used to bring 
$2 and $3. 

In both magazines and books the editions have grown 
wonderfully in fifty years. Editions of 1866 were from 
1000 to 5000, the latter being a large order. Now circu- 
lations of 10,000 to 100,000 are common, every-day mat- 
ters, and sometimes a million or more copies of a maga- 
zine are called for, demanded with the regularity of 

52 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

clockwork on a regular date. There are probably a hun- 
dred magazines in the United States alone that publish 
above 100,000 copies per issue, and some of them are 
weeklies; there are some eight or ten magazines that 
run regularly into the millions, and their advertising is 
figured in millions of dollars. 

PROGRESS OF ART IN PRINTING 

In 1866 there simply was no artistic side to printing. 
Even as late as 1890 much of the printing done was 
crude, as various specimens demonstrate. There were 
no artists in the trade, either of the sort that drew pic- 
tures and arranged colors, or the more humble sort that 
laid out a job with good taste. The few real artists who 
used oils and water colors would no more have thought 
of going into a printery for an order than into a coal 
mine or a tannery. Yet in this short fifty years the 
printing press has become the chief center around 
which picture artists dispose of their wares, and every 
high-grade printing shop has a man who understands 
artistic reproduction, and whose taste and judgment are 
equal to that of the best knights of the brush and 
palette. 

Half a century ago the steel engraving and the cop- 
perplate picture, each produced by slow and costly 
means, were the only really artistic features connected 
with printing. Such pictures were occasionally tipped 
into the books and magazines. When it was actually 
necessary to illustrate printed matter, the wood-cut was 
employed, and while the cuts in the old issues of Har- 
per's and Leslie's and the London Illustrated News had 
much of merit to commend them, we know today that 

53 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

this was not art. The cheapest circulars and folders 
now often display better pictures than those magazines 
furnished in the sixties. 

It must be admitted that the lithographer led the 
typographic printer in the pursuit of the beautiful and 
truly artistic in printing. The chromo was the first evi- 
dence of real beauty, and it was just dawning on the 
horizon in 1866. It attained its height in 1876, when, 
at the Centennial Exposition, a leading lithographer ex- 
hibited together three pictures, superficially just alike, 
and mounted in similar gorgeous gilt frames. One was 
a high-priced oil painting by a noted artist, one an oil 
copy by a student valued at $50, and one a lithoed chro- 
mo copy worth 50 cents, and the public was invited to 
guess which was which of the three. 

Some of these chromos involved twenty to thirty lith- 
ographic printings before all the color effects were re- 
produced, and this was expensive. Every printer will 
recognize the difficulty in passing a sheet twenty or 
more times through a press with exact register in each 
instance ; it is hard enough to make three and four col- 
ors register. To avoid the expense of so many print- 
ings, cheap chromos were produced with only five to 
eight printings, and some of these were very far from 
works of art, and tended to bring the entire chromo 
business into disrepute. 

MARVELS OF TRICOLOR PRINTING 

Thanks to Ives and other inventive geniuses among 
photographers and engravers, the three-color process 
came along, and made it possible for the typographic 
printer to reproduce all that is bright and beauteous to 

54 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

the human vision. The first pictures were naturally 
somewhat coarse and gaudy, but gradually the details 
were worked out, and about the opening of the present 
century it became possible to reproduce paintings and 
photographs in natural colors with great fidelity to Na- 
ture, in either three or four printings, and at so low a 
cost that they were promptly adopted by magazines and 
periodicals, and used in manufacturers' catalogs. 

The half-tone had educated the trade to highly coated, 
smooth papers, and the typefounder had designed har- 
monious type-faces, manufacturing them in series of 
sizes, well adapted to go with both black and colored 
pictures, while the ink manufacturers had met the de- 
mands and given us inks of all shades adapted to the 
new conditions — brilliant and quick drying. 

When it became apparent that color-printing had 
come to stay, and would be demanded in larger and 
larger quantities, the press-builder also fell into line, 
and gave us two-color machines and recently a four- 
color machine, saving handling and reducing costs. 
There were also found printers and pressmen who had 
both the taste and the mechanical ability to handle the 
new processes and machines, and get the very best out 
of them. 

It does not take long to summarize all this on paper, 
but its accomplishment in hundreds — yes, thousands — 
of printing offices all over the world has been a gigantic 
task. The detail of this development of high-grade 
color-printing would fill volumes. It became possible 
only by the intelligent cooperation of the picture artist, 
with brush, pen and oil; of the photographer with 
ruled glass screens or filters, electric light, etc. ; of the 

55 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

plate-maker with patient watchfulness overcoming tri- 
fling mechanical defects ; of the inkmaker, finding exact 
shades not chemically antagonistic to the paper ; of the 
typefounder, supplying harmonious faces and new con- 
veniences in the composing room; of the steel block- 
maker, in supplying bases on which color plates could 
be simply and surely shifted for register ; of the roller- 
maker, in furnishing composition that would work well 
with new inks ; of the lay-out man responsible for the 
finished output, and required to see that all details 
worked out successfully; of the pressman, who had to 
match difficult color proofs and look out for register, 
paper shrinkage, offset, and perfect execution; and 
finally of the binder, who had to complete the product 
with an elegance suited to its high character. 

SATISFYING COMMERCIAL RESULTS 

Little does the purchaser of a 15-cent magazine, 
with a front cover that would put a Rubens to the blush, 
reflect that a small army of skilled workmen are essen- 
tial to the production of these by the million, in order 
that he may get his one copy for a few pennies on the 
nearest newsstand. 

Other truly artistic work has been developed along- 
side the three- and four-color printing. The Ben Day 
process has permitted the production of agreeable pic- 
tures in flat tones, in one color with all sorts of gray 
effects, and in two or more colors, with infinite gradua- 
tions of tone or tint of each color, obtained by the den- 
sity or openness of the shading. This has made it prac- 
ticable to print entire sections of magazines, and some- 
times of advertising pages, in two colors, with effect of 

56 



FIFTY YEARS OF PRINTING 

four or more tints ; also booklets galore ai;e turned out 
with the aid of the half-tone, the brush artist and the 
platemaker. 

Under modern methods many illustrated catalogs 
have become works of art, outvying the magazine and 
picture books in their lavish use of the best effects of 
photography and retouching, combined with the broad 
resources of the up-to-date color-printer. This com- 
mercial art enables the wholesaler who cannot well send 
samples of his goods to every prospective buyer, to por- 
tray them in exact and lifelike pictures, showing them 
to the very best advantage, in their natural surround- 
ings and coloring, and commanding respect for the 
house by the very elegance of the printing. 

GROWTH OF A GREAT MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY 

Fifty years ago printing and publishing was an in- 
fant industry in America, the total production in the 
United States, measured in dollars, being but $40,000,- 
000. During the years its volume has increased twenty 
times, so that now printing and publishing ranks as the 
third greatest manufacturing industry of the country- 
It keeps busy one-twentieth of the people engaged in 
manufacturing, and pays one-thirteenth of the manu- 
facturing wages. 

The printers and publishers of America now produce 
a round billion dollars' worth of printed matter an- 
nually. Of this vast industry the metropolitan district 
of New York constitutes one-fourth, while Chicago, 
Philadelphia, and Boston together supply another 
fourth, the remaining half being distributed through 
the country. 

57 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The United States printing and publishing industry 
is about one-third of the world's total, so that we actu- 
ally have in New York City one-twelfth of the world's 
printing. The newspaper branch of the industry con- 
stitutes the smaller half, being slightly exceeded in vol- 
ume by the production of the magazine, book and job 
branch. 

The "American Dictionary of Printing" says: "The 
lofty office of printing, as furnishing a permanent em- 
bodiment of thought, and not only preserving but multi- 
plying its form of expression, has frequently become 
the chosen theme of the poets. Cowper vigorously and 
plainly described its power, both for good and evil, in 
his apostrophe: 

"How shall I speak thee, or thy power address, 
Thou god of our idolatry — the Press! 
By thee Religion, Liberty and Laws 
Exert their influence, and advance their cause; 
By thee, worse plagues than Pharaoh's land befell, 
Diffused, made earth the vestibule of hell; 
Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise; 
Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies!" 



58 



<§*£ •>, t,* £,& &£. && 

$0mp%m '3BN/ji..^i ■&T'*rgl\?£i 

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XF.ARLV EORCOTTEX PROCESSES 



Sketch of the Charles Francis Press 

BY SPENCER LATHROP 

IN 1894 the house of Molleson Brothers, paper job- 
bers of New York City, found itself the unwilling 
principal owner of a run-down printing office, to 
which it had been induced to extend a credit that proved 
to be mistaken and unwarranted. This printing office, 
known as the Stuyvesant Press, was taken charge of by 
the sheriff, for a small claim, and put up for sale. Mol- 
leson Brothers were the largest creditors, for $3,300, 
and they decided that the best way to get back their 
money was to bid in the printing plant, and place it in 
the hands of a competent printer, who could perhaps 
put it on a paying basis, thus making a business for 
himself, and also clearing up the debt. By good fortune 
they connected with Charles Francis, who was then 
looking for an opening. They learned that he had a 
record for saving run-down printing plants and were 
glad to make any reasonable deal with him and thus 
save themselves. 

Mr. Francis looked over the plant, decided that it 
was worth $8,300, and offered if they would bid it in 
to take it off their hands at that figure on easy terms, 
but on the condition that Molleson Brothers, and not 
he, furnish working capital. He thought if he furnished 
the experience and ability, that it was the part of the 
house of Molleson to supply the money. To this we 
consented. I say "we" because I was an active partner 
in Molleson Brothers, which has since become Lasher 

59 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

& Lathrop, Inc. We could not afford to go into the 
printing business, and concluded that the best way to 
secure our investment was to put in more, which we 
did later to the amount of $2,000, giving Mr. Francis 
a free hand to make a business for himself while get- 
ting back our money. 

So one fine morning in June, 1894, the sign of Charles 
Francis, Printer, succeeded that of the Stuyvesant 
Press, nobody dreaming of what it was to develop into. 
There were five cripples of cylinders in the shop, 
probably all purchased second-hand, but the type and 
furnishings were in good condition. I remember Mr. 
Francis telling of proposing to start up one of the cyl- 
inders to see what the press was, and the old foreman 
calling out, "Don't pull that lever! If you start that 
press I won't be responsible for what will happen." 

To which Mr. Francis responded, "If it's as bad as 
that I want to know it now, and throw it out. Let 
her go !" 

In subsequent years this outfit was referred to as "a 
lot of old junk," but much of it was usable, with some 
repairs and patching, and it was soon put in workable 
shape, and began to turn out printing. How he ever 
tided through those early weeks with only $2,000 cash 
I never could figure out; but he did. 

One of his first good jobs was The Critic, which, I 
am told, came to him in this way : Mr. Francis had so- 
licited the job for his former employer, and had taken 
the order for the other house. When Mr. Gilder, pub- 
lisher of The Critic, learned that Mr. Francis had quit 
and set up for himself, he sent for him, and said: "I 
want you to take the printing of The Critic." 

60 



SKETCH OF THE CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS 

"I can't," said Mr. Francis. "I solicited it while on 

the payroll of the Company, and you signed 

the order, so I can't step in and take it away from 
them." 

"Well, things have changed since you left," said Mr. 

Gilder. "The Company have already done 

things I don't like, including stiffening the price. I 
went with them because I liked your way of doing 

business. The Company is not going to have 

The Critic any longer. If you won't take it, it will 
have to go somewhere else." 

The upshot of it was that The Critic came to Charles 

Francis without any hard feeling from the 

Company, and it helped carry the payroll for many 
weeks until other work came along. 

Every month we had a statement from Mr. Francis, 
and every six months a complete balance of accounts, 
and these made clear to a five cent piece the financial 
status. They had to take what work they could get, 
and turn it out the best way they could with somewhat 
rickety machines and not too modern type. Mr. Francis 
was surely a glutton for hard work ; in fact I do not re- 
call another man who could do so much, and always 
keep his health and strength; I guess the secret of it 
was that he never worried. He was at the plant early 
and late, and all the time ; he went out and got the work 
and then put it through the plant. 

At first he had only two or three reliable men to help 
him ; but he swiftly built up a little force of competent 
workmen on whom he could rely, and they all "sawed 
wood." One of the early employees was a $6-a-week 
errand boy, Gus Oakes we still call him, now superin- 

61 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

tendent of the place, and a stockholder and vice-presi- 
dent of the company. Mr. Oakes has grown up with 
the plant and got next to Mr. Francis by pure ability. 

The original location of the shop was in West 27th 
Street, and it soon proved inadequate in many ways. 
By May, 1895, when some new machinery was being 
put in, a move was deemed advisable, and quarters were 
shifted to a one-half floor of the building 30 and 32 
West 13th Street, which was to be the home of the plant 
for twenty-one years. 

While the volume of business grew, it was a terribly 
hard job to make ends meet, pay interest and make pay- 
ments on new machinery and material, the more diffi- 
cult because the times were bad. The panic of 1893, 
so called, did not exhaust itself for several years, and 
during 1895 and 1896 it was uphill work week in and 
week out, and a continued struggle to meet the pay- 
roll and pay the bills for supplies, which were heavy, 
because the plant was inadequate, and had to be con- 
tinually fed with new material. At the end of 1895, 
the year's business totaled up $33,000, showing that 
the place was moving, but the debt hung on. 

I remember that about this time Mr. Francis asked 
us if we were tired and wanted to quit. But our faith 
in him was unchanged, and we said: "Go right on; 
we know that you can't do the impossible. With better 
times you will show results." 

And so he did. After the two-year period of trial 
the monthly statements began to get a wee bit better, 
and little by little a healthy growth was apparent. It 
speaks volumes for Molleson Brothers' confidence in 
Mr. Francis that they once carried $20,000 of indebt- 

62 



SKETCH OF THE CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS 

edness for the printing office; but so safely was the 
structure built up that this was never regarded as a 
risk, but simply a wise means of saving the original 
stake of $8,300. 

Within a few years the annual receipts of the 
plant passed the $100,000 mark, and year by year 
they climbed steadily, each annual statement being bet- 
ter than the previous one. These figures are eloquent. 
They record the results that came from Mr. Francis's 
patient plodding application of right rules for success 
in business. Though we always had faith in Mr. Fran- 
cis, I don't think that in the early days we any of us 
appreciated fully how well he did things, and with 
what enduring force he held himself down to the course 
marked out. Other men in business recognize the rules 
for success, and violate them when they feel like it ; so 
far as I know, Mr. Francis never did. He was a stickler 
for old-fashioned straightforward methods. He never 
had anything to conceal or cover up. When he did 
business with another man he laid all his cards on the 
table face up. By which I mean that he never kept 
back what the other man had a right to know. If a 
blunder was made in printing — and we all know that 
it can't be done perfectly all the time — his plan was not 
to try and cover it up, but to take it straight to 
the customer, show him the worst, and inquire, "What 
can we do to make it right and square ourselves with 
you?" 

He would tell more things about his own business 
than any man I ever knew. Where others would be 
shocked at the idea of letting a competitor know just 
what he was doing, he never hesitated. He would tell 

63 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

anybody who asked in a proper spirit almost anything 
about his trade and his methods. He never could see 
why he should distrust people generally because there 
are a few crooked people trying to take advantage of 
others. He was as taciturn as possible about the busi- 
ness of his customers, but he cared not who knew what 
he was doing. And withal he was as quick to recognize 
a scalawag as anybody, and if he had to do business 
with him would do it in a way that involved taking no 
chances. 

I used to wonder at his openness, and really I was 
not sure but that it was a weakness, and that some time 
a competitor would take advantage of his frankness to 
do him an injury; but I have concluded that Mr. Fran- 
cis knew very well what he was about, and that his 
policy of serving his customers so well that they be- 
came his friends safeguarded his business so as to ren- 
der it impregnable. 

Anyway, in view of the remarkable growth and suc- 
cess of the Charles Francis Press, all admit now that 
his methods were wise, and that he measures up larger 
to us as the years roll on. I don't know whether he 
will want to print all this in his book, but it's going 
down the way it comes to me, and he is so frank that I 
have a notion he will not edit out anything good or bad 
that I say of him. 

And while discussing personality, I want to put in 
here that Mr. Francis never seemed disturbed when- 
ever anybody criticised or spoke slightingly of him, as 
we all get it at times. I remember an instance — I wish 
I could quote names — of another printer who had made 
some not very complimentary remark about Mr. Fran- 

64 



SKETCH OF THE CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS 

cis which was repeated to him. Instead of getting mad 
and sending it back with interest, he invited the other 
fellow out to lunch, and when they got their knees 
under the table said, "Look here, Blank, what have you 
got against me? Do let it out, all of it, and if I'm 
wrong I will apologize ; but for the life of me I haven't 
the least idea what you are sore about." 

The other man was totally disarmed, and the differ- 
ence was frankly discussed, having arisen from a tri- 
fling misapprehension. That man has been ever since 
a firm friend of Mr. Francis. 

The policy of making friends was not confined to 
customers and competitors. His habit of inviting his 
help to work with him and not for him, of treating 
them as equals and not inferiors, in my judgment, has 
been a tremendous force in the upbuilding of the busi- 
ness. While holding every man to strict performance 
of his duty, and having no room for idlers and shirkers, 
and being very frank to point out errors and shortcom- 
ings to his help, yet he always did these things in a way 
to stimulate a man to better things rather than to dis- 
courage or antagonize him. He had a way of letting a 
man who blundered show his own blunder and admit 
it, and then of expressing confidence in him that he 
would never let that occur again, which put the man 
on his mettle. And he was so uniformly fair, just and 
kind that his employees all liked him as it seemed the 
better for his strictness. 

They respected him because they saw that he lived 
up to the rules he demanded of them, and that he 
worked as hard or harder than any. At this writing 
he is well along in years, and at his desk at eight o'clock 

65 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

in the morning for five days a week, just like some 
young chap trying to make a record. 

One of the prominent reasons for the success of the 
concern was the ability of Mr. Francis to size up other 
men, to recognize what was best in them, and what 
they were fitted for. This was particularly valuable 
in selecting his help and the heads of his departments 
as the business grew. For instance, I introduced to 
him my cousin, Percival Lathrop,and suggested him for 
a temporary place in the bookkeeping department, to 
fill in a few months of his time before going West. 

"I don't want him at all unless he likes the work well 
enough to stay with me," said Mr. Francis. "But let 
me have a talk with him." 

The result was that Percival Lathrop was found to 
fit in the bookkeeping department, and he liked the 
work so well that he abandoned the idea of going West, 
was put in charge of the cash of the Charles Francis 
Press, and has been there over fifteen years. 

Every department head in the place fits his work, 
is proud of his position, proud to be a part of the house, 
and to work with the others for its success. A more 
harmonious group of men I never met in business. 

After the period of doubt had passed, and the in- 
creasing volume of business produced balances dem- 
onstrating that a success was being made, there 
came a positive demand for improved facilities, which 
had to be met; and this meant enlarged rather than 
reduced indebtedness. But gradually the notes were 
all wiped out, and by 1904 the last of the Molleson 
obligation was paid, and the Charles Francis Press 
was independent. 

66 



SKETCH OF THE CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS 

In 1900 the business was incorporated for $50,000 
common stock. Not long afterward the bindery was 
incorporated as a separate company at $10,000. Later 
$75,000 of 7 per cent, preferred stock of the Charles 
Francis Press was issued, a considerable portion of 
which has been taken by employees. Though guar- 
anteed at 7, this preferred stock, I understand, always 

has paid 8 per cent. 

♦ ♦ * * 

(The remainder of this chapter has been supplied by 
Mr. John A. Wilkens, whose more intimate knowledge 
of the later growth of the plant, enables him to speak 
with authority.) 

When I came with the Charles Francis Press I found 
it growing, the business demanding more space, and 
loft after loft was taken in the 13th Street building until 
the entire structure was leased. As the old cylinders 
were dumped, two new ones usually came in, and in a 
few years the original outfit of "junk" had entirely dis- 
appeared, and a row of Century presses took the place 
of the discarded cylinders. After the Campbell Com- 
pany stopped building Centuries, there was a gradual 
substitution of Miehles, of which there are now nineteen 
in the plant, including the four two-color machines. 

It was a great day for the Charles Francis Press 
when the first perfecting press was installed in 1900. 
Soon this machine was loaded up with publications. 
Then came two Cottrell webs, producing 96-page maga- 
zine sections at 4,000 an hour. These were bought for 
cash. Linotypes came in gradually, as a matter of 
course. It seems as if it was a perpetual adding of new 
outfit to meet the demands of customers. The aver- 

67 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

age annual outgo for new machinery was fully $25,000, 
or $500 a week, and I have sometimes marvelled that in 
all the years it was possible to meet every note and obli- 
gation, taking care of old business and preparing for 
the new. Yet for a long time the house has been free 
of mortgage, paying cash for all its machinery and 
taking the discounts. 

The Charles Francis Press certainly attracted suc- 
cessful customers ; for a series of well-known publica- 
tions are issued from its presses year after year, and 
as these publications have grown in circulation, as well 
as in thickness, the printing office had to grow to supply 
their wants. 

Finally the time came when the 13th Street building 
became too cramped, and it was evident that some sort 
of move must be made to secure larger quarters. A 
suggestion for a Printing Crafts Building was made by 
Mr. Francis to Mr. Eugene Goode, active in real estate 
development. The idea was taken up and developed, 
proving acceptable to many, and after three years of 
hard work Brett & Goode began to receive tenants in 
the magnificent Printing Crafts Building, 34th street 
and Eighth avenue, New York. The largest space of 
any one firm in the $3,500,000 structure is the Charles 
Francis Press, which located there in June, 1916. 

Incidental to the change came the purchase of an 
entirely new linotype plant, a $20,000 Hoe web maga- 
zine press, a two-sheet United Printing Machinery Co. 
press, a Cleveland folding machine, and a lot of other 
up-to-date machinery and conveniences, to the total of 
about $120,000. As the Company has for years main- 
tained a large surplus, this expenditure was not severely 

68 



SKETCH OF THE CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS 

felt, although it came at the same time as a moving bill 
of $20,000. In its new home the Charles Francis Press 
occupies 60,000 square feet of floor space, or fifteen 
times the original area, and here it is doing a business 
at this writing of $50,000 a month ; or if the value of 
the paper stock be figured as part of the business, the 
monthly production is $80,000. 

There is but one painful memory to cast a shadow 
over the otherwise bright history of the Charles Francis 
Press. Reginald W. Francis, the gifted son of Charles 
Francis, loved by all who were privileged to know him, 
who was trained to the printing business, and was to 
have been the successor to this splendid equipment, has 
gone before, stepping out at the ripe age of 28, just as 
he was ready to carry the load of this magnificent print- 
ing house. This brief cablegram, which I find on the 
letter-file, tells the story: 

"April 11, 1912. 
Liverpool 5. 
Chasfran, N. Y. Reginald died today." 

When this telegram was received the entire plant 
ceased operation for five minutes, and a silent prayer 
of love and sympathy ascended for the bereaved ones. 
Then the power was thrown on again, and who among 
us is wise enough to say that Reginald did not look down 
with pleasure at the busy scene, where the great presses 
almost ceaselessly whirr and the steady click of the lino- 
types tells the stories of the magazines ! The Spirit of 
Peace rests with the place, and the untiring energy of 
the man who built so well towers over the edifice. All 
is as Reginald would have it. 

69 



Making a Profit 

PROFIT in printing is obtained largely by the 
ability of the man who is "it" in the establish- 
ment. We have all noted how the great print- 
eries tend to fall to decay when the light goes out that 
led them to success. Ability can find a way through 
many difficulties ; without ability the finest collection of 
printing machinery will not return the cost of opera- 
tion. 

A few start small, virtually as amateurs, and build 
up. One of the most noted of these was A. E. Chasmar, 
who developed such exceptional taste in fine printing 
that his work was known clear across the continent, and 
commanded very high prices. But usually the man who 
can make money and build up a plant has to be found. 
It takes a strong man at the helm to pilot the printorial 
craft into the harbor of steady profits, and continual 
good judgment to maintain such position when gained. 
The personal touch always seems to rise superior to 
conditions and to rules. 

So far as I have observed, the large establishments 
are always built up by men who know thoroughly their 
trade, being well grounded in the details of their call- 
ing and familiar with the allied arts. Two sorts of 
ability are necessary — the sort that goes to produce 
good printing, and the sort that can handle the finances 
successfully. The aesthetic taste of men like Chasmar, 
or DeVinne, or Stillson, simply will not allow them to 
do an inferior piece of printing. But because Mr. De 
Vinne thought a well-made book superior to a many- 

70 



MAKING A PROFIT 

colored booklet, we find that he developed as a maker 
of fine books, while Chasmar and Stillson are typical 
as exemplifiers of the modern artistic color printing. 
These men had exceptional ability as craftsmen, and 
we can all point to many other conspicuous examples. 

When it comes to financial skill, we find ourselves 
thinking of Hallenbeck, Conkey, Morgan, Cushing 
Joseph Gantz, etc. These men are more notable for 
their sound business sense and industrial enterprise 
than typical of printing as an art. 

I have ventured on this use of names well known in 
printing to emphasize the point that the good business 
man is of prime importance in printing for profit. All 
of these men made money, all had an eye on profit, but 
it was their keen business judgment, and general abil- 
ity to take advantage of the conditions around them, 
that made their financial successes, rather than their 
ability as good printers. 

Large capital will make a printing plant go, if the 
capital can find the right managerial ability; but it is 
scarce. A printing office investment is a dangerous one 
for large capital, because of this necessity for brains of 
a certain type to secure profitable results. But large 
capital without the right ability will not win out, though 
it may keep a large printery going for a long time, thus 
having a greater chance to find the right man to run it 
profitably. 

The greatest number of failures in the printing busi- 
ness are where one would naturally expect the fewest — 
among the class of men who are good workmen, and 
have saved a few thousand dollars, and set up their 
own shops. They know printing, but they do not know 

71 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

business management, and the greater number of them 
are sold out within a few years by their creditors. The 
best of these failures in business become foremen and 
department heads in large shops, where their abilities 
are valued, and where they earn more than most pro- 
prietors of small and medium-sized shops. 

Printing plants in the great cities are getting so large 
that they require large capital, and it is a question 
whether they must not soon follow the development of 
other large industrial establishments, operated by capi- 
tal, engaging high-priced expert men to run them. How- 
ever, the good printeries of today are mainly one-man 
propositions. Occasionally there is a combination of a 
good salesman and a good mechanical manager who 
work well together, but whatever the personnel, the 
brains and ability must be there as the first essential 
toward profit-making. 

The second essential is an up-to-date equipment. A 
good printer may maintain an existence with a lot of 
old machinery and type, but the money is made with 
the newest and best presses, composing machines, feed- 
ers, folders, stitchers and supplies. When you see 
a machine that will produce ten per cent, more than the 
one you have, it pays to make the change and drop the 
old servant. Printing is a ten per cent, business, and 
with machinery that is ten per cent, behind the times 
you are just at 0. 

Not only is it needful to have the best machinery, 
but a good balance of equipment must be maintained, 
according to the class of work handled. The shop that 
is busy one month in the composing room, the next 
month in the pressroom, and the next in the bindery, 

72 



MAKING A PROFIT 

may easily be losing money by stagnation in the de- 
partments that are not rushed. The thing to aim at 
is uniformity of product. As soon as a new printing 
office is moving well, the proprietor should begin to 
solicit the class of work that will fit in best where he 
needs it. This does not mean cutting prices to get fillers. 
The only filler worth having is one that pays its ten 
per cent, profit. The manager who once gets an office 
to paying a moderate profit, and builds up on the prin- 
ciple of keeping it balanced, is on the road to success. 

One other fundamental is absolutely necessary to 
making a profit — the employment of trained workmen, 
in sympathy with the management. Slipshod, half- 
trained men will not yield a profit to any employer ; he 
must either find good men or make new ones competent 
by training. In all but the smallest shops the workmen 
are now specialists. The all-around printer, who can 
do anything in a printing office, is almost extinct. The 
good manager develops his force as he builds up his 
plant, putting square pegs in square holes and round 
pegs in round holes, and not vice versa. He also secures 
the good will of his men, training them to work with 
him not for him; making them his friends, not his 
slaves. 

Men must be trained to do work right, but it is quite 
as important that they learn to produce substantially, 
and to rush when the rush work comes. We have all 
heard of pressrooms where the feeders put their heads 
together and restricted the output, on the principle that 
if one did a big day's work they would all have to. 
A young feeder trained in such a shop once got into a 
printery that was in the habit of making records in 

73 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

the pressroom, and where all were loyal to the pro- 
prietors, knowing" that they were well used, and that 
he paid them all he could. This feeder, after a few 
hours' work, noticed that the young fellow on the next 
press had done considerably more than himself, so he 
threw off the power and went over there, remarking-, 
"Say, mister, what's your awful rush? Ease up a lit- 
tle; it don't do to get out so much as you're doing." 
Fifteen minutes later the foreman came to this youthful 
restricter of output, with a yellow envelope containing 
half a day's pay. "Stop where you are, young fellow. 
Put on your coat. We don't want your kind around 
this place any longer than we can help." And to the 
sidewalk he went. 

It is apparent that the older feeder would not have 
resented the tip to go slow, and notified the foreman, 
if he had not been heart and soul loyal to the shop, and 
had been taught that the shop relied on him and trusted 
him, and learned that the way to good wages and pleas- 
ant surroundings lay in helping the boss to make money, 
not in hindering him. Men who are well treated will 
rarely fail to respond to a demand to rush work 
through; they are disposed to give the employer the 
best there is in them. 

The training of good men has been sadly neglected, 
but a start has been made, and there is one good appren- 
tice school for compositors in New York, and a good 
school for pressmen in Rogersville, Tenn. The School 
of Printers' Apprentices, now occupying quarters with 
the Hudson Guild in New York, is the largest in point 
of membership, approaching 400 at this writing. The 
instructor, A. L. Blue, has perfected a most satisfac- 

74 






MAKING A PROFIT 

tory course, the cost of which is only $17 per pupil 
per annum. Part of this is borne by the Guild, part 
by employers, and part by the Typographical Union. 
The U. T. & F. C. A. school is at Indianapolis, and has 
a $100,000 equipment. The Carnegie Institute of Tech- 
nology maintains a Technical School of Printing, 
Harvard University has another, and the Wentworth 
Institute of Boston maintains a School of Printing and 
the Graphic Arts. There ought to be such schools in 
every large city, and there will be if employers and 
employees get together cordially. 

Given a man of the right ability, a fairly modern 
printing plant, and a bank balance sufficient for the 
needs of the concern, what course must the manager 
pursue to make a fair profit? 

First, he must know his costs ; second, he must know 
how to estimate correctly ; and third, he must see to it 
that the work is executed in accordance with the esti- 
mate — that is with a fair profit added. 

Any printer can get cost sheets from the nearest Ben 
Franklin Club or his local Typothetse ; but these are not 
usually satisfactory for individual guidance, especially 
for the small shop. They simply serve as a basis to 
show what it has been found necessary to charge in 
large, well-equipped, modern printing offices. We know 
that those who go in for specialties can often secure 
lower costs, but that is seldom a good reason for their 
going away below the fair market price of the general 
shop. 

To get the elusive profit, a man must know not only 
his own costs in his own shop, but must know what his 
market will bear, this being determined largely by what 

75 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

his neighbors are charging. And he will not, if he is 
wise, always assume that when the customer says, 
"Why, you are away above So-and-so's figure/' that it 
is certainly true. Rather, it is well to verify it by ask- 
ing Mr. So-and-so over the phone. It may appear that 
the competitor figured on a much lower quality job, or 
that the customer was putting up a bluff. By keeping 
on pleasant terms with competitors, the printer may 
protect himself against this unfair method of beating 
down his prices. No printer can expect to get prices 
above the general market, unless he can give exceptional 
quality or extra service, both of which add to costs. 

The beginner in business almost invariably much 
underestimates his costs. Often he thinks that if he 
makes his prices 50 per cent, above the wages he pays 
out, he is sure to make a little. Better-informed print- 
ers will double the hour price paid to the workman, and 
expect to thus cover the overhead charges and leave a 
handsome profit. This method used to work out about 
right some twenty or twenty-five years ago, but with 
higher-priced machinery, steeper rents, and greater 
selling expense, the overhead has mounted until now it 
is necessary to charge the customer $2.50 to $3.00 for 
every dollar paid in wages, if the printer is to see a real 
profit. 

Machines are larger and more costly every year, and 
we no longer wear them out, but expect to replace them 
with faster machines within a decade; there are slack 
seasons to overcome, and there are seemingly endless 
new minor costs, such as steel blocks and furniture, 
swell office fixtures, ice water, sanitary paper cups, ven- 
tilating fans, delivery trucks, dues to trade associa- 

76 



MAKING A PROFIT 

tions, etc., all of which have to be met. Holidays increase 
and accident liability insurance must be paid, while 
night charges grow. Thus it costs about $10,000 a 
month to keep open the doors of a large printing office, 
holding its machinery ready to serve the public. In the 
best managed shops there is always some spoiled work 
tending to increase cost. I recollect a customer order- 
ing calendars for the new year — "same as the last." 
After printing and delivery they were returned, having 
been accidentally printed from a plate two years old 
which did not include the words "Real Estate and." The 
small shop has its proportion of similar expenses, and 
if the proper allowance is not made by charging them 
to live work there will be a failure somewhere. 

The miscellaneous character of these overhead 
charges is very deceiving, and only a man with a clear 
head and a natural aptitude for figures can see through 
the maze and realize his full costs. It is inability to ap- 
preciate these that accounts for the great majority of 
failures in the printing business. Knowing all these 
minor costs, and appreciating that they are a part of 
his hour costs, that he has got to pay for as positively 
as the paper bill, the printer will not fail to make the 
right hour charge in estimating. He then arrives at 
a basis where, if he can calculate the hours correctly, 
he can make accurate estimates, which should yield a 
profit. In figuring the number of hours, nothing seems 
to quite fill the place of personal experience in the vari- 
ous departments of the printing office. The man who 
has set type knows what he ought to accomplish in an 
hour, and the pressman knows how many sheets he 
ought to be able to run through in a week. But because 

77 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

what a man ought to do and what he does do are gen- 
erally different things, it is a matter of experience that 
workmen and foremen when asked to make an advance 
estimate of the time requisite for a given job will 
usually place it about 25 to 33 per cent, below the aver- 
age performance. 

Forty years ago Theodore L. DeVinne called atten- 
tion to the fact that while it was a common belief that 
a good compositor set 1,000 ems an hour, and no type- 
setter ever admitted he had less speed, yet the records 
of his establishment showed that the average perform- 
ance of the best crew he could hire was 550 ems an 
hour. Human nature has not changed, and the printer 
who estimates for a profit has to add at least 25 per 
cent, to an experienced foreman's estimate of probable 
time, or he will find that so few jobs go through in the 
time estimated that an assignment will be necessary un- 
less he can get more money out of his customers. See 
chapter on "Estimating and Price-Making." 

The best of foremen are workmen, and it is their 
business to try to put work through their departments 
quickly. They are apt to be quick workers themselves, 
and they figure they could do such composition, lock- 
up, or the like in so many hours if all went smoothly, 
and so they could in nine cases out of ten. With the 
exception of long runs, such as publications, it appears 
that nine jobs out of ten do fail to run smoothly. One 
week there is extra help called on that is not familiar 
with the office, and perhaps not as competent as the 
regular help ; another week there is a holiday ; another 
week there is considerable nightwork, and the men get 
tired, and the hour product is reduced; another week 

78 



MAKING A PROFIT 

some bad blunder is passed, and something has to be 
reprinted, and so on, until it is apparent that the weeks 
of good production are the exception rather than the 
rule. Pressroom results are quite as apt to be below 
par as in the composing room. Records in my own 
shop show that the average production of cylinder 
presses, many of them capable of 1,700 an hour, is in 
fact under 700 an hour, counting only the hours when 
they are manned for work and should be producing. In 
all classes of estimating there must be a large margin 
left for delays and uncertainties. 

To make a profit in a print shop it is necessary to 
guard against over-equipment. No temporary work 
should delude a printer into buying more machinery 
than he can keep busy. The modern plan of segregating 
print shops, that is bringing several of them under the 
same roof, tends to check the evil of buying too much 
machinery. It is so easy to run into the next office and 
borrow the use of a press, that the printer is not tempted 
to buy unless he actually has to have them. Interchange 
of work is to be commended as tending to maintain 
more uniform prices, as well as bringing printers to- 
gether so that they come to really know each other and 
exchange courtesies instead of regarding each other as 
natural enemies. A good manager will seek to know 
his competitors, and to maintain friendly terms with 
them, rather than to keep aloof, thus allowing the cus- 
tomers to use the printers against each other, when 
they are so minded. There is often some money to be 
made by keeping in with one's competitors ; there is ab- 
solutely none in inviting their ill will by objectionable 
methods. 

79 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

It is good policy to refuse to figure on work for which 
your office is ill adapted, and to recommend the possible 
customer to some printer in your neighborhood, who is 
equipped for the class of work in question. Usually 
this results in the favored printer's returning the com- 
pliment by recommending you for your own specialty. 
Thus are all parties benefited. 

In keeping his plant up to date and figuring for 
profits the manager frequently has machinery problems. 
He will discover a machine occupying floor space and 
usually standing idle. He has to decide whether it is 
best to throw it out, or whether it is likely to come into 
vlauable use at a later date. If it is determined to keep a 
rather ancient machine, the problem arises how it shall 
figure in the annual balance sheet. What is the right 
way to figure its depreciation ? I find that all rules for 
calculating depreciation fail in practice. 

Twenty per cent, on type and ten per cent, in the 
pressroom is a common rule for depreciation. Yet a 
steel cabinet ought to last fifty years, and be worth just 
as much next July as it was last September. Since it 
became so easy to cast type we value it less, and for less 
cause throw it away ; much of it may fairly be charged 
as current expense when it is bought; if carried in an 
inventory it may well depreciate fifty per cent. Job 
presses often last twenty years, showing five per cent, 
depreciation ; this is probably also the right figure for a 
linotype. But very many presses are replaced in ten 
years, calling for ten per cent, depreciation. This sug- 
gests that all rules fail in particular cases, and that 
each case is usually particular. In the Charles Francis 
Press we have found that the best way is to make a 

80 



MAKING A PROFIT 

semi-annual appraisal, letting the same man do the 
work, and use his judgment, varying his figures of 
depreciation with the changes in conditions. 

The marketing of a better article may well cause 
owners to write off fifty per cent, in depreciation in a 
single year in a thing far from worn out ; when a press 
manufacturer goes out of business the machines he 
made are easily depreciated twenty-five per cent.; in 
other instances it is impossible to see why a thing has 
depreciated at all. What the manager needs is to get at 
the facts so as not to mislead himself or his house as to 
actual profits. 

Under "Office Management and Keeping Accounts" 
will be found much fuller data, having a direct bearing 
upon profit-making, because the method of figuring 
profits is gone into. One valuable feature may be re- 
ferred to here. In order that there may be no bungling 
of finances, and no falling down on payments, a daily 
tickler is desirable, showing the cash available for that 
day, with indications of payments to be met. In a large 
business, conducted on a close basis, it is dangerous to 
lose touch with your exact financial status, as this 
affects your policies. For a rough approximation of 
running profits, the sum a proprietor draws out of his 
business is a better test than what he figures as book 
profit. What he takes out he has ; what is on the books 
may never get out of the business. 

By adding together the monthly wages, the invoices, 
and the general expense, which latter should include 
salaries for all the office help from the proprietor to the 
errand boy, and by subtracting from these the sales of 
the month, a close approximation to the profit can be 

81 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

figured — at least it is accurate enough for the printer 
to run on until he gets his annual or semi-annual bal- 
ance sheet. 

Another thing requisite to profit-making is to con- 
fine one's attention to one's own business, and pay less 
attention than most men do to the policies and acts of 
others. If you know your costs and have figured a job 
rightly, why should you allow yourself to be biased by 
the price of Jones or Smith, who have gone ten per cent, 
below you ? Run your own shop right, and don't bother 
much about other people; if you handle your respon- 
sibility without serious error, you are sure to come 
through triumphantly. If you blunder badly, you will 
fall and perhaps fail, regardless of what the printer 
across the street may or may not do. You simply must 
get prices that leave a margin of profit, and you must 
give reasonable satisfaction to the customers you work 
for, or you will not pull through and make a success. 

It is important to make your customers your friends, 
and the way to get friends is to deserve them. What- 
ever the ethics of your customers, they are bound to 
appreciate a printer who is prompt, reliable, and who 
shows evidence that he is mindful of their interests, 
trying to give them exactly what they want when they 
want it. Sometimes printers are exercised over the 
morality or ethical quality of the things they print. It 
is not always easy to draw the line between that which 
is simply bad or vulgar taste and the wholly immoral. 
Opinions differ so, and what one man thinks is immoral 
or objectionable may be highly pleasing to some other 
taste. For these things the responsibility lies prima- 
rily with the customer, who supplies the copy, as the 

82 



MAKING A PROFIT 

printer must naturally confine his energies mainly to 
watching for errors and mistakes, without editing copy 
or looking for other fellows' "motes." It is good prac- 
tice, however, to instruct the proofroom to refer any- 
thing questionable to the business office. 

A leakage in many printeries grows out of the con- 
stant handling of paper, engravings, electros, etc., be- 
longing to customers, at cost, to meet competition, or 
handled absolutely without charge. This is a mistake. 
If customers object to direct charges for such things, 
they should be counterbalanced in some reasonable way. 
Take electrotype plates for instance. Their handling, 
storage, and keeping in condition perhaps for years en- 
tails considerable expense, which may be provided for 
by the simple expedient of placing in your contracts 
that when customers' electros are killed, the metal shall 
belong to the printer. This is already a trade custom, 
but it is better to have it in the contract. Some printers 
make contracts to take over odds and ends of paper left 
from runs, to pay for paper handling, and many print- 
ers do this without contracts — which is not an above- 
board transaction. However, the point is that the good 
manager, to realize profit, must see that storage and 
handling costs are paid in some way by the customers, 
else they deprive the office of legitimate earnings. See 
chapter titled "Leakages, Pitfalls and Mistakes." 

There should be a trade custom providing for the 
printer's receiving a small percentage on all the paper 
that goes through his plant, for he has to pay rent for 
the space it occupies, and he is responsible for its condi- 
tion even if he does not insure it. Further, in many 
cases he acts as a salesman for the paper-maker, be- 

83 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

cause he develops new work requiring more paper. He 
is also selling engraving, and various things produced 
by the allied trades, and it would be the proper thing 
for the printing trade to get together and insist that a 
small percentage be remitted to the printer by the 
paper-maker, engraver, envelope house, etc., as a legiti- 
mate return for the sales they make. 

In figuring profit many forget that there is no profit 
until after the interest on the plant, depreciation, and 
the proprietor's fair salary are figured off. The man 
who can make in the business only enough to pay his 
interest, and say $2,000 a year, is better off to put his 
money in the bank and work at some $2,000 job as fore- 
man or salesman. The question is often raised as to 
what salary a proprietor of a printery is entitled to. 
As a minimum, the highest figure in the local scale of 
the unions, say $30 weekly in New York or Chicago. 
As his business grows he is entitled to draw more, and 
on a business of $100,000 a year, he should have at least 
four per cent, salary or $4,000 annually. As the busi- 
ness gets larger, probably three and a half per cent, 
would be right; with over $50,000 annual business, 
which would naturally involve competent assistant 
managers, the president and manager would probably 
be satisfied with three per cent, on the increase of busi- 
ness. Of course these percentages are liable to change 
with conditions. If a man has developed a profitable 
specialty for his concern, he may be entitled to consid- 
erably more salary. 

This matter of salary is often important as affecting 
the rights of smaller stockholders, who may be deprived 
of much of their legitimate profits if the manager's 

84 



MAKING A PROFIT 

salary is too high. However, profits in the printing busi- 
ness are not often large enough to afford disputes of 
this character. It is regarded by many as a cutthroat 
business, hampered by too much competition and unat- 
tractive to men of ability. I entered the trade because I 
loved it, and though it has its difficulties I am convinced 
that it will yield fair profits to good intelligence and 
honest effort, and that is all that any business ought to 
do. Speculative businesses, that sometimes yield enor- 
mous fortunes, do so at the expense of some unfortu- 
nates, and no real man wants to make money that way. 
Printing is a manufacturing business, and should yield 
ten per cent, profit, and the man who makes a million in 
it must do it by extending the volume of his business, 
not by boosting prices. 



85 



Thoughts from Successful Printers 

THE written word from the men that do things, 
the utterances of those who have actually 
achieved the things of which they speak, the rec- 
ords of the men who know always surpass in inter- 
est any accumulations of theory. For this reason it 
has been deemed well to place here quotations from 
eminent fellow printers, who have demonstrated in 
their own histories the principles they voice. 

First let us quote from dear dead DeVinne, the man 
who set so high a mark, and who blazed the way for 
the rest of us who have tried to elevate printing from 
a trade to an art and industry. It is evident that 
many of us learned correct price-making from him. 

THEODORE LOW DE VINNE 

Accident and circumstance have much to do with suc- 
cess or failure in the printing business, but there are 
personal qualities which seem to me necessary to suc- 
cess. First of all, in my belief, is an understanding of 
the printing business. It is not enough to know how to 
set type or work a press. The good compositor or press- 
man cannot be fairly qualified to manage a business on 
his own account unless he has a knowledge of all the 
expenses of a printing house, which are always greater 
than is supposed. 

A love for printing is equally important. The man 
who frets over the drudgery of details, who turns over 
to his employees work which he should do personally, 
who does not like to handle types or presses, or even 

86 



THOUGHTS FROM SUCCESSFUL PRINTERS 

to study their peculiarities, who wants to be an em- 
ployer in a lordly and magnificent way, is sure to find 
later that the faulty estimates of his employees have as- 
sumed alarming proportions. . . . The drudgery 
is endurable to one who loves his trade. The printer 
who has his heart in his trade will take more pleasure 
in the ownership of a well-equipped printing house 
than he would in the possession of fine horses or houses. 
The man who loves work for the work's sake may not 
always succeed, but he deserves success, and will get it 
if not prevented by misfortune or want of prudence. 

GEORGE H. ELLIS 

Your request for a few words on "Printing for 
Profit" brings vividly to mind my early days in the 
business, which I entered in a small way without any 
counting-room experience. On the advice of a friend, 
I bought a copy of DeVinne's "Printers' Price List," 
and this, with such modifications as were made neces- 
sary by changing conditions, such as price of paper, 
etc., was my "guide, philosopher and friend," and con- 
tributed largely to such success as came to me in those 
early days. It took the place for me then which the 
cost-finding system takes with the printer of to-day, 
the underlying principle of which is absolutely essential 
to success, i. e., a fair price and a fair profit on every 
job going through the office. 

Second to this principle adopted then, always ad- 
hered to since, and always contributing to our success, 
was: "Never fail to keep a promise." In those days, 
particularly, printers' promises were made largely to 
be broken. 

87 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

That we now have on our books many of the cus- 
tomers who came to us between forty and fifty years 
ago is due to a considerable extent to this. 

These two factors, combined with good work, with- 
out which few printers can, and none should, succeed, 
have been our mainstays in "Printing for Profit." 

JOSEPH A. BORDEN 

Just as soon as employing printers come to realize 
that they are engaged in a real business and look less 
toward mere mechanical processes, they will more 
nearly make a success of their enterprises. Speaking 
from an experience of twenty-seven years in conduct- 
ing a printing business, there have been a few essential 
elements that have been constantly applied and have 
resulted in a fair degree of success. The first essential 
has been a definite knowledge of the cost of every 
individual job, and each job has been sold on the basis 
of this cost plus a reasonable profit. 

The square deal has always been uppermost in 
thought in dealing with customers, and no advantage 
ever taken through lack of knowledge on the part of 
any patron. The effort has always been maintained to 
secure the confidence of every patron, and all transac- 
tions have been on a basis to merit the permanence of 
such confidence. 

WILSON H. LEE 

I really don't think I could add anything to what you 
would say in regard to what a printer should do to 
make a success of his business. It means a good cost 
system, courage to charge a price for your work that 

88 



THOUGHTS FROM SUCCESSFUL PRINTERS 

will give you a fair profit, to maintain a well-equipped 
plant with an efficient working force, the ability to turn 
out a good quality of work promptly, and to conduct 
your business in a way that you will have the confidence 
and respect, not only of the community in which you 
live, but of your competitors and your patrons. 

SAMUEL REES 

On the first day of May, 1880, I resigned my position 
as manager of the job room of the Omaha Republican 
and purchased the printing office and bindery of a con- 
cern which had failed. At that time the point system 
of casting type had just been introduced by Marder, 
Luse & Company, of Chicago, and I immediately or- 
dered about five hundred dollars' worth of new type on 
the point system. 

I had barely started when the representative of the 
Commercial Agencies called on me and inquired as to 
my financial responsibility. My reply was that I was 
not entitled to any credit, but that I believed I would 
be able to pay for everything which I might purchase 
— that they could report to the paper houses that I 
would pay for every sheet I used, but if I did not make 
a success of the business they would be out the freight 
on their shipments. 

I made up my mind that I would fix the prices on 
all work done in the shop, and that the prices made 
by other printers would not affect my actions; that I 
would endeavor to be fair to my customers and myself 
and to my competitors. I never fell for the filler idea. 
Perhaps my actions on these lines were largely in- 
fluenced by a book published by the late Theodore L. 

89 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

DeVinne, wherein he gave prices for various kinds of 
printing. The book taught me much as to costs, but 
more than all it taught me to think and to figure care- 
fully on all estimates. 

The shop which I bought was a small one — the only 
machinery being two Gordon presses, a ruling machine, 
and an old paper cutter. It now contains eight Gor- 
dons, seven cylinder presses, two stone and one offset 
litho presses, two ruling machines, two folding ma- 
chines, and four paper cutters, a Monotype outfit and 
a large stock of paper — all paid for. 

Almost from the start I have had time tickets, which 
showed the amount of time on each operation of every 
job, so that I always knew just what the costs were, 
and could prove to any customer who questioned a bill 
that the charge was correct. Such success as has come 
to me has been wholly due to the determination to make 
every job pay its proportion of the expense, and to 
yield a fair profit. 

There has been nothing during my experience in the 
business — and this experience has now lasted sixty 
years, since I first went to work in my father's office 
— which has been of so great benefit as the "Cost Find- 
ing System," which has been worked out and is being 
introduced by the United Typothetse and Franklin 
Clubs of America. 

Most young printers who start in business have never 
had any business experience, and many of them having 
been members of the Union, are naturally led to think 
that unless there is some kind of combination back of 
them to keep prices up, the only way they can get busi- 
ness is by cutting prices so that they will be lower than 

90 



THOUGHTS FROM SUCCESSFUL PRINTERS 

competitors. This may seem to be a small matter, but 
when we realize that the two-Gordon shop affects the 
four-Gordon shop, the four-Gordon the next larger, and 
so on clear up the line to the largest establishments, we 
realize how this lowers prices all along the line. 

My advice to every one in business is to study costs. 
Learn what the overhead expense is, and the produc- 
tion per hour of every operation, and then have enough 
nerve to make a price sufficiently high to afford a legiti- 
mate profit. And do not overstock your plant with ma- 
chinery, but be sure and keep it up to date in efficiency. 

In my younger days, all straight composition in job 
offices was done by the piece, and the office charged 
double the piece price. For instance, if the printer was 
paid thirty cents per 1,000 ems, which included dis- 
tributing, the selling price would be sixty cents. On 
presswork, which at that time was nearly all done on 
Washington hand presses, my recollection is that the 
prevailing price paid the pressman was forty cents per 
token, and the selling price was one dollar per token. 
On the average press, eight tokens a day was con- 
sidered a day's work, so that the return was eight dol- 
lars a day when the press was running. Before the 
introduction of the cost-finding system, I have seen a 
cylinder press costing $3,000 which did not produce 
more profit in dollars and cents than did the old Wash- 
ington of our fathers. 

I have seen composition sold for fifty cents per 1000 
ems when the piece price was twenty-five cents, and 
often done by the week by job hands who were so slow 
that their wages were more than the price received by 
the office, saying nothing of the cost of distribution, 

91 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

proofreading and the overhead. But even in the old 
times I do not remember seeing many printers who 
could be called successful business men. Most of them 
were making a living, and most of them could have done 
that without having to bother with the cares, risks and 
responsibility of running and managing a business. 

The prices then prevailing were comparatively bet- 
ter than those charged by most printers before the 
propaganda of cost-finding set printers to thinking and 
studying overhead and other charges. In those old 
days there was very little overhead charge except rent. 
A hand press cost but a few hundred dollars and would 
outlast several pressmen. No wages were paid when 
the men were not working, and all straight matter was 
set by the piece and the price paid included distribu- 
tion. There was no soliciting for work and no expense 
in obtaining it. 

EDWARD STERN 

Profit-making in the printing business is an elusive 
quantity. It is not subject to simple rules or formulae. 
This is probably the case because the printing business 
is one in which the personal equation plays a major 
part. And that major part is not confined to the use 
of personality for the purpose of laying down binding 
rules of conduct which will govern practically any case 
which may present itself. Instead, the personality must 
constantly be in evidence to exercise judgment on prac- 
tically every individual operation that comes into the 
printing office. 

A few simple rules, such as the securing of enough 
business to keep the plant occupied at least 75 per cent. 

92 



THOUGHTS FROM SUCCESSFUL PRINTERS 

of its maximum efficiency, the keeping of the cost of 
production down to the lowest practical limit, and a 
thorough and complete knowledge of this cost, are the 
sine qua non of success in profit-making. 

But these rules are not automatic. Personal super- 
vision is necessary to see that work is not taken at less 
than it is worth. Personal supervision must provide 
that materials purchased are suitable for the work. 
Personal supervision must see that the work is done 
right in the first instance, so that additional labor will 
not be necessary for correcting errors of judgment. 
Personal supervision must ensure that the work will 
be done within the time allowed for it. Personal super- 
vision must provide that the job fits into the schedule 
arranged for it, so that overtime and other additional 
expenses may be avoided. 

Practically every job that enters the printing office 
has a complete individuality of its own. It is not a 
product like nails, cotton cloth, or anything else that 
is made to be held in stock and sold. The making of 
any circular is a piece of work as distinct from all of 
its fellows as the construction of a dwelling house. And 
nothing may be taken for granted in its make-up with- 
out danger — danger on one hand of increased cost and 
on the other of failure to satisfy the purchaser. 

Besides these instances of the employment of individ- 
uality in the production of each job, there are, of course, 
the general necessities of order, cleanliness, care of 
machinery, type and appliances. Failure to preserve 
a high standard in these respects means increased cost 
and a decreased opportunity for profit, because the 
printing business, being highly competitive, offers little 

93 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

opportunity for the avoidance of the penalty for care- 
lessness. 

So it all comes back to the quality of the individual 
who owns the business and his ability to master his 
problems, and to extend his personality by the use of 
competent assistants. 

ROBERT L. STILLSON 

There is only one distinct thought in my mind of 
great value to the printing business, and it is a mighty 
good one, but I am afraid the average New York printer 
is not big enough to see it. 

The printing business needs a big "Boss" to get men 
together and keep them in line. His salary should be 
about $50,000 per year, and he should be worth it. 

The California Orange Growers' Association pays 
$40,000 to a big man for part of his time. 

An efficient, forceful, high-priced man is the cheap- 
est. Such a man should increase the earnings in your 
shop and mine enough to pay his salary. The salary 
would amount to nothing as compared to the increased 
earnings. 

EDWARD L. STONE 

If I should lay more stress on any one of several 
thoughts to be passed along, it would be — Install a 
Standard Cost-finding System and study the informa- 
tion it imparts and the result it shows, and be gov- 
erned accordingly. 

I believe there is more money to be made by remem- 
bering this end of the business than there is in filling 
one's plant with machinery and type, or selling good 
printing, or a large volume. 

94 



THOUGHTS FROM SUCCESSFUL PRINTERS 

I might write three hundred words or three thou- 
sand words and say a great deal less than is in the 
above sentences. 

C. FRANK CRAWFORD 

"Printing for Profit" is a subject which opens up a 
field of thought that is almost limitless. In the first 
place, many printers are ignorant of what is "Profit" ; 
some think that the contents of their weekly pay en- 
velope is profit; others think that if they buy time at 
fifty cents an hour and sell it for seventy-five cents, that 
the difference is profit, and that if they buy a ream of 
paper for four dollars and sell it for four dollars and 
fifty cents, that the fifty cents is profit. These printers 
do not realize that until every item of cost has been 
charged to a job, and until they have the money in 
hand in payment for the job, and the amount received 
is greater than the amount paid out, there is no 
actual profit. 

There can be no profit in a printing, or any other, 
business until it is first perfectly understood what is 
"Profit," and there can be no profit without close co- 
operation between each of the departments of a busi- 
ness. The mechanical department must work in har- 
mony with the commercial department, and vice versa ; 
the commercial must know that when type is set up it 
must be distributed, proofs must be read, corrections 
must be made, that men are not busy all the time, type 
wears out and must be replaced and must be kept in- 
sured, workmen must have space in which to work, 
and light and heat to enable them to work, a foreman's 
time and a proofreader's time and a boy's time cannot 

95 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

be charged to any one job, but must be paid for never- 
theless; that the same conditions exist in the press- 
room, and that shipping departments are a neces- 
sary adjunct, the time of which cannot be charged to 
separate orders. On the other hand, the mechanical de- 
partment must know that rent must be paid for of- 
fices, wages must be paid to clerks, bookkeepers, stenog- 
raphers, managers, and office boy, as well as to sales- 
men; that telephones, telegrams and postage cost 
money, and bad debts and spoiled work are losses; in 
other words, that the difference between what the job 
is sold for and what is paid to the workmen who pro- 
duce it, plus a charge for stock, is not by any means all 
profit. 

The result of such an understanding between depart- 
ments is that each is made to realize how expenses can 
be reduced and profits increased. Goods will not be sold 
except at an advance over cost. A man in the me- 
chanical department will think twice before going into 
business for himself, and having decided to do so, will 
be an intelligent, and, consequently, a fair competitor, 
and on the whole there will be a greater chance of 
"Printing for Profit." 

THE HANDLING OF PAPER STOCK 

Mr. R. T. Deacon, president and treasurer of the 
Lambert-Deacon-Hull Printing Co., of Saint Louis, 
kindly contributes the following valuable sugges- 
tions : 

The paper stock department in a printing establish- 
ment is one that is given too little attention in many 
of the printing establishments throughout the country. 

96 



THOUGHTS FROM SUCCESSFUL PRINTERS 

Paper stock represents dollars and thought put into 
the buying, care in the handling and in seeing that all 
stock is well covered while in the stock department, so 
that none of it becomes soiled, and a complete inven- 
tory which is perpetual in character will assist that 
department in making a showing on the right side of 
the ledger. 

A memorandum of all stock received should be en- 
tered in a day book, showing the date received, quan- 
tity, price and extension, and a complete card-indexed 
system should be kept of all stock on hand. 

An entry should be made of all stock issued on 
memorandum slips in duplicate, the original of which 
goes into the work ticket and the duplicate of which is 
kept by the stock clerk, and he in turn at his leisure 
posts same on the card-indexed card. This should be 
done every day, and by having a card for each kind of 
stock carried, properly filed, the clerk can ascertain 
the quantity of any particular stock on hand at any 
moment, or a complete total of the stock on hand can 
be made in a few minutes' time. 

Too few printers pay attention to the waste stock. 
If a job is to be turned out on a sheet which will allow 
of some waste on the side or end, the total cost of the 
whole sheet is chargeable to this particular job, and 
the waste or unused portion should be sent down to the 
stock room again from the cutting room, and be 
marked "waste." This should be carefully wrapped up 
in a sealed package and piled in its proper place as- 
sorted, and when a small job comes in for which this 
stock can be used, it is nice and clean and it is not 
difficult at all for the stock clerk to make his selection 

97 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

from the waste, odds and ends, in all cases where such 
stock can be used. 

The cost of this waste stock having been charged to 
the original job, raises the question as to how much 
should be charged for it the second time, or when it 
is actually used. In our office we usually discount it, 
but there is no reason why it should not be charged 
for at about 75 per cent, of its original cost. This 
spells profit to the printer and oftentimes will assist 
him in landing some work that he could not obtain 
if he had to buy new stock for it. 

In case of a fire loss, this card-index system being 
kept in the vault, and being kept up every day, is a 
complete check for an absolute adjustment and leaves 
no room for doubt. Of course this cannot all be done 
without the services of a man who is interested in his 
work and who is willing and anxious to keep his 
records and his department up at all times. To do the 
work one day and not do it the next, or try to catch 
up after two or three weeks' time, will not answer the 
purpose. It is just as important that these entries 
should be made every day, as it is that the daily cash 
transactions should be entered daily, and it is my hope 
that by saying just these few words, some few printers 
may read them and profit by doing so. If any are inter- 
ested, and do not thoroughly understand the system 
as described, the writer will be very glad to give such 
further information as is possible. 



98 



The Printer as a Business Man 

GOOD printers are not too frequently found ; good 
business men are much less common ; and the 
combination of a good printer and a good busi- 
ness man is very rare indeed. This is the more deplor- 
able because most of the clever fellows who graduate 
from a foremanship and start a printing business are 
unconscious of their lack of business training. If they 
knew where they were weak, they would be in a position 
to remedy this lack of knowledge and experience. But, 
failing to recognize their need of business experience, 
the great majority of those who either start a printing 
office or buy one, repeat the old, old blunders of their 
predecessors, who figured that they could take work for 
80 cents that their former boss sold for $1, and still 
make more money out of it. 

THE SAD TALE OF AN AVERAGE OFFICE 

The general history of the average new printing 
office is this : A workman has accumulated $1,000. He 
is familiar only with the wage cost of what he produces, 
and observing the prices which certain work commands, 
and feeling assured that he can get certain printing by 
cutting the price ten per cent., he decides to take a 
chance. He buys $5,000 worth of printing material, 
mostly second-hand, and gives $4,200 in notes, keeping 
$200 for cash expenses. The $200 is gone by the time 
his first job is on the press — mostly for unforeseen costs 
of getting started. When his first note falls due he is 

99 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

already short, and gets the cash by throwing off $10 to 
a customer to "help him out with the pay-roll." 

Having to meet each month $150 of notes, with grow- 
ing interest, he soon feels that he has simply got to 
have $1,000 worth of work each 30 days. In order 
to get it, he rushes around, making estimates on any- 
thing and everything, regardless of whether his plant 
is or is not well fitted for such work. He goes below 
the market price on most of it, and whenever he does 
not get a job calculates it must be because he did not go 
low enough, and shaves his figures more than ever. 
Thus he tends to lower the prices on ten times the 
amount of work he executes, for most customers simply 
use his figures to hammer down the charge of their reg- 
ular printer. 

This unfortunate man ceases to expect to draw a 
regular salary, and puts all his energies into meeting 
these notes, believing that in three years, when he gets 
this debt paid off, he will have things easy and delight- 
ful. Losing all sense of overhead and indirect expenses, 
he does not discover that he is doing work for less than 
cost until one day, when he is, say, six or eight months 
behind on his notes, his largest creditors get together 
and demand an assignment. There is a sale, and the 
stuff brings a little less than the debts; but he is cal- 
loused by this time, and beyond grief. 

In fact there may be a feeling of relief, for his wife 
and children will probably shout with joy, saying, 
"Now, pa, you'll take a good job, won't you, and we can 
have new clothes and go to the movies again !" 

This poor printer doesn't know how it all happened 
for a year or two, until he has time to get a broader 

100 



THE PRINTER AS A BUSINESS MAN 

view of things. But when he does thoroughly wake up 
he knows that he has attempted the impossible; that 
he should have studied business methods before he tried 
to be a business man ; that he needed much more cash 
than he had ; that he took work too cheap ; that he tied 
himself up so that he was constantly doing things his 
better judgment condemned. 

It is a sorry fact that the above summarizes the 
history of about five out of every six printing offices 
that are started. The sixth fellow either has a little 
more money, or a little more ability and experience, or 
takes in a partner who has one of these things, and so 
pulls through and establishes a permanent business. It 
has been stated that a second-hand printing plant, com- 
posed of what most good printers would characterize 
as "old junk," has been sold in succession to eight or 
ten different parties in and around New York, before 
it landed with one who was able to complete his pay- 
ments on it. The original plant of the Francis Press 
was sold five or six times before it fell into my hands. 

An employee once came to me with his resignation, 
saying he was going into business. This gave the op- 
portunity, after congratulating him on his enterprise, 
of impressing upon him that he should be sure to make 
a success of it, and show what there was in a graduate 
of the Charles Francis Press. His attention was called 
in particular to the Typothetse cost lists, which he was 
invited to study, and urged to observe that most print- 
ers failed through charging too little, being deceived 
as to the indirect costs. Until he was known as a good 
printer, giving a good service, he would probably have 
to work at very close prices, yet shaving too close was 

101 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

the error to be avoided as fatal. He took the advice 
kindly, acted on it, and is in business today, having 
weathered the storms of placing a new business on a 
firm foundation. 

A PRESCRIPTION FOR SUCCESS 

So much for things to be avoided. Now let me give 
the "Prescription for Success," which I delivered to 
the Middle Atlantic Cost Congress a few years ago. 
The popular ingredients that go to make up success in 
the printing business are as follows: 

1. Strict honesty with your customer, competitor, 
banker, those who assist you — meaning labor, and in 
fact all things, especially with yourself. 

2. A thorough knowledge of your business, both me- 
chanically and commercially. 

3. An efficient equipment and an efficient force to 
handle the equipment. 

4. A knowledge of your costs sufficient at least to 
know whether you are making a fair profit on all 
your product. 

5. Careful study of your overhead to see that you 
do not overload your productive capacity by complicated 
bookkeeping or methods of obtaining work. 

6. Make your every customer a salesman for your 
business. That he is always willing to become if you 
treat him right and give him good service. It is easier 
to keep business than to get new business. Strain every 
effort in reason to please the customer. 

7. Have satisfied, competent help, and see that they 
are supplied with an abundance of material ; it is cheap- 
er than labor. 

102 



THE PRINTER AS A BUSINESS MAN 

8. Be careful that every step or movement is short- 
ened to the uttermost, and that the hygiene of the work- 
rooms is as good as it is possible to make it. Then, if 
the returns show that it can be done, let the producers 
share with you in the results. In fact, the whole es- 
tablishment should be run on the family basis — "One 
for all and all for one." 

With these I might add that constant watchfulness 
and thought with unity of action must bring success. 

We all know men in business who, while strictly 
honest with their customers, think it all right to pad 
a statement to the bank, or play a trick on a competitor, 
or to squeeze their employees. These errors all bring 
their retribution. The banker sizes you up and shaves 
your rating; the competitor gets sore and sends the 
work he can't do to some one else than you, and the 
workmen who are crowded would not be human if they 
remained loyal. The straightforward policy that is 
fair with everybody is the policy that wins in the long 
run. 

It is not enough that a man be a good printer, know- 
ing how to turn out excellent work mechanically; he 
must be able to handle it commercially, to recognize the 
general business needs of his customers in order that 
he may retain them. 

THE UNFORGIVABLE SIN 

Underestimating is the most serious error of the 
average printer. It is a sin that brings its own pun- 
ishment. Direct costs he can easily figure, but the mat- 
ter of overhead charges puzzles and deceives. It is 
quite as great an error to charge too much as too little ; 

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PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

the desirable thing is to find the fair price, at which 
you can afford to give the customer not only the grade 
of printing but the service that he wants. The Ben 
Franklin clubs and Typothetse and Cost Congresses 
have done much to scatter knowledge as to estimating, 
and the trade papers have aided nobly in spreading the 
information as to scientific methods of figuring costs. 
Every printer can secure such guidance by asking for it 
in the right quarter. The trouble with many printers 
is that they think they know better than the managers 
of the older and larger houses. They suspect the suc- 
cessful printers of trying to "put one over" on them, by 
overstating costs, and insist on having their own dear 
experience. 

There are two kinds of capital essential to success in 
business — one is brain capital and the other money capi- 
tal. The first is the most necessary asset. If a man has 
no money he cannot lose any, and he must work his 
brain the harder. Having brains, he stands a good 
chance of getting the necessary backing. In my time 
I have run a number of businesses, as outlined in the 
chapter on my earlier experiences, and with the excep- 
tion of the first experiment, in which I dropped $1,500, 
I never put money capital into a printing office, not 
even the Charles Francis Press. I found others to back 
my capital of experience and knowledge with their dol- 
lars, and I made the business pay them and me. After 
over fifty years of experience I am happy to be able to 
say that nobody ever lost any money by backing me, 
and that I was able to pull through even some very 
unpromising printing concerns, and make them show 
profits. 

104 



THE PRINTER AS A BUSINESS MAN 
CAPITAL IS ALWAYS WAITING FOR BRAINS 

When a man really knows how to run a good printing 
business right, he will find the capital waiting. There 
is too much disposition to help aspiring young printers 
into business ; too much willingness to give them credit 
before they have earned their spurs. It would be better 
for everybody if the machinery people and supply 
houses demanded larger initial cash payments, and were 
stiffer as to credits. It would be still better if all old 
machinery, turned in in exchange, went to tlie junk- 
man, instead of being "rebuilt" and put to work again 
to depreciate prices. 

I see to it that my old machinery is broken up. I 
don't want it set up in the next block, to make a busi- 
ness for another such unfortunate as described in the 
opening of this chapter. I regret to say that a press 
manufacturer tells me that I am the only printer he 
knows who does break up his old machines ; others agree 
that it is a good thing — and then sell them for what 
they will bring. I had rather lose $100 or $200 on an 
old machine and know that I am not contributing to 
the ruinous condition. 

There is a machine in the Charles Francis Press that 
cost $25,000 to install; probably it will be thrown out 
within fifteen years to make way for something better. 
The sinking fund charge against that machine to re- 
place its cost with interest is therefore $12 a day. Other 
charges run the cost of operation up to $60 a day, and 
as it has to be there ready for business at all times, with 
the men ready to run it, the cost is at least $45 a day 
when it is not running. As it must sometimes be idle, 
it is obviously necessary to charge $75 a day for its use, 

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PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

to be sure of a profit in the long run. This brings the 
costs up so that the work can be done about as cheaply 
on smaller, old-fashioned machines. However, this rapid 
machine turns out the work, and it is in the mails often 
a week before it could get there if produced by the old 
methods. So we look to the gain in service rather than 
reduction of cost in purchasing such a machine. 

This machine always has some idle hours, and as it 
stands there eating up $45 a day, and costs only $15 
more if kept going on live work, there is a temptation 
to take in some job at say $35 a day to fill in idle time. 
The poor business man would be very apt to yield to 
such temptation, and grab such a job as a filler. The 
more far-sighted recognize that the printery that starts 
to taking fillers on which the overhead charge is not 
included, usually keeps on until all the work of the place 
is fillers taken below cost. Then it is too late to save 
things, and an assignment follows. 

IT IS BEST TO SPECIALIZE 

A very common mistake of the printer as a business 
man is to go into the market to do every kind of print- 
ing. It is far better to specialize, and get your men and 
machines and equipment fitted to doing a certain class 
of work. Druggist's labels, fruit-can labels, railway 
tickets, were long ago taken out of the category of 
general printing because specialists did them so much 
better and cheaper that the printer learned to leave 
them alone. See chapter on "Service, Efficiency and 
Specialization." But there are thousands of printing 
shops today, with equipment for stationer's work only, 
which will not hesitate to give a price on printing a 

106 



THE PRINTER AS A BUSINESS MAN 

magazine, because it will be so handy to have it to fall 
back on when stationery is dull. And there are other 
offices doing fairly well with a few publications that 
will take any job of letter-heads or blank-books offered 
them. It is best for book offices to stick to books, for 
catalog houses to stick to catalogs, for magazine houses 
to stick to magazines, and so on down the line. 

Many concerns can work two kinds of printing to- 
gether satisfactorily, as large editions of catalogs and 
high-grade publications, or booklets and advertising 
specialties, or loose-leaf propositions and blank books ; 
but the handling of any considerable variety of work is 
against economy, and therefore not good business. The 
Charles Francis Press sends all work not in its line 
to other printers in the vicinity, and the result is that 
these others learn to recommend the Francis Press for 
the work they know that they themselves are not 
equipped for, and which is in our line. 

This is not intended as a criticism of the so-called 
merchant printer or stationer, who takes orders for 
anything he can get in the printing line and farms them 
out. He is really a jobber in printing, and has a right 
to thrive in his line ; but observe that he always knows 
enough to give out his work to the houses having the 
right equipment, or who are doing certain work for 
less than they should, because they have not yet fully 
appreciated its cost. 

The good business printer will discover that it is an 
essential to maintain a close spirit of accord in all 
branches of his shop, between those in authority and 
those under authority, producing unity of action, and 
developing a feeling that every one in the place, from 

107 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

the office boy up, should believe that his cooperation is 
needed as much as that of the general manager. The 
organization should be a unit working together, in the 
same manner as every piece of mechanism in the ma- 
chinery of the plant, and all trying to do their part with 
the same precision, added to which should be the brain 
thought, leading to an advancement of the general 
partners, for so they all are. 

WHAT OTHERS THINK OF THE PRINTER 

This chapter may well be closed with brief quotations 
from letters received from successful manufacturers 
and dealers in the allied trades, in other words of the 
men who sell to printers, and judge of them from an 
outside viewpoint. 

A roller-maker says : "I do not believe that there is 
any manufacturing line — and the printing business is a 
manufacturing business — in which there is so great a 
lack of knowledge of one's own business as is displayed 
in the printing and publishing lines. It is remarkable 
that so few printers have any idea as to their own costs, 
and that when they have found them, they have lacked 
the nerve to stand by them, but would take an order at a 
figure of supposed cost, rather than stand the chance 
of losing an order. There is one serious error that the 
printer usually makes — that if there has been a mistake 
made on a job, or if it has been poorly executed, he 
attempts to offer too many excuses as to why it hap- 
pened. It does not make his patron any happier listen- 
ing to the arguments or offers to see that it does not 
happen again on the next job, and the glaring insult of 
saying that the printer cannot afford to make good the 

108 



THE PRINTER AS A BUSINESS MAN 

loss on the job does more to reduce the respect that the 
consumer has for the printing industry than many- 
other causes. As a business man he should accept his 
loss, and do the job properly, organizing his plant and 
men in such a manner that the job would be delivered to 
the customer a little bit better than expected. A busi- 
ness man would not think of offering to a customer ten 
thousand excuses as to why his delivery was not 
perfect/ ' 

A cost-system man says : "There is no question that 
the printer can become a good business man if the 
fallacies of his present belief can be shown him, and 
the principle of good business methods taught him, to a 
point where he shall have confidence in them. The 
curse of the printing industry today is the feeling of 
each proprietor that he is the only one in the trade who 
is on the level, and that all of his competitors are 
crooked. The invariable reply to an approach on the 
subject of cost-system installation is that he knows his 
own cost, but that his competitor needs the knowledge 
that a cost system would give him, while the man up 
the tree can see that the individual himself is no better 
informed nor a better business man than the average." 

A press manufacturer writes : "I have noticed that 
the printers who are successful as business men are 
usually good merchants, whether or not they personally 
are good printers. They display attractive merchan- 
dise, know what it costs, give adequate service to the 
buyer, and get what it is worth." 

A supply man says : "The printing business of the 
past was made up of small plants, some of which grew 
to large proportions. Nearly all these printers were 

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PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

graduated from the composing room or the pressroom 
— very few from the counting room. The consequence 
was that they had very vague notions of cost, and were 
disposed to think that everything above wages was 
profit. As a result it was only natural that the 
printer did not shine as a successful business man. In 
the last few years, however, there has been a decided 
awakening ; the printing business throughout the whole 
country has made wonderful progress, and there are 
numerous printing establishments everywhere which 
are conducted on the soundest principles, and general 
conditions are improving in a most satisfactory man- 
ner. The successful printer of today is quite as good 
a business man as is the successful manufacturer in 
other lines. 

"It was no unusual thing, in days gone by, to see 
plants that had been in use for a whole lifetime ; today 
the progressive printer does not hesitate to relegate a 
machine to the scrap-heap if it can be demonstrated to 
him that a machine of higher earning capacity is to be 
had. He realizes that if his business earns a profit of 
ten per cent, on the gross output, he will double his 
profits if he can increase his efficiency ten per cent., 
without increasing his expenses." 

A short comment by a prominent electrotyper : "My 
forty years' experience in doing business with printers, 
in and out of the city, has taught me that there are more 
failures in the printing business than in many other 
lines ; the cause has not been for the lack of business, 
but in doing the work in many cases below cost, and 
the ultimate result was a failure. I hope that by the 
general introduction of cost systems this evil will 

no 



THE PRINTER AS A BUSINESS MAN 

be overcome, and the business brought up to a more 
profitable basis." 

A paper dealer says : "I have been more successful 
as a paper jobber than as a printer, and lay it prin- 
cipally to the fact that certain mental characteristics 
that would make a successful printer, I lacked. Of all 
the lines that I have been in, the printing business 
necessitates a more varied general knowledge and 
ability than any other business. Of course the same 
principles apply to every business for success, but in the 
printing business a man has to work more with his 
head than any other business I know of." 

An ink man has this to say: "There are printers 
who are most excellent business men and printers who 
are very poor business men, exactly the same as in any 
other line. A good business man depends quite as 
much upon observation as he does on any earlier educa- 
tion, and my experience has been that the self-made 
man who is observant and tactful, succeeds better as a 
business man than does one who lacks those qualifica- 
tions and has merely an earlier education to base his 
business career upon. In an experience of over 38 
years we have averaged a yearly loss on our sales of 
only a trifle over one-half of one per cent., and dealing 
only with printers. This is the best testimonial I can 
give that printers as business men are at least careful 
of their obligations." 

PRINTERS LEARN FROM EACH OTHER 

On reading over this chapter, I find that it contains 
so much advice and comment on lack of success, as to 
suggest that the writer thinks he is one of a very few 

ill 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

successful ones, who thoroughly understands the busi- 
ness end of printing. It is proper to disclaim any such 
thought. What I have learned, I have gleaned quite as 
much from my fellows in the trade, as from observa- 
tion of outsiders. In more recent years it is a pleasure 
to note the improved character of business methods 
among printing houses. We are learning, even if we 
have been slow. In the employers' associations, there 
has come to be a very frequent exchange of views and 
experiences, mutually helpful. 

I do not desire to pose as a teacher to those who know 
as much or more than I ; but I do want to point out the 
pitfalls to my fellow-printers who come after, that 
fewer of them may tumble into the holes that have 
tripped me and others. Frankly, I admit that most 
of the errors cited in this chapter have been mine at one 
time or another; but in later years I have had the 
courage of my convictions, and refused to be tempted 
for temporary expediency to do things that in the long 
run injured the trade. I have tried in my business to 
live up to the best that I knew, and that is all any of 
us can do. 



112 



Profitable Financing 

CASH capital is essential to the conduct of modern 
business. Unless the printer has available 
money at all times he finds himself seriously 
handicapped. The ordinary proprietor of a printing of- 
fice does not keep close enough to the banker. Having 
once asked for a loan and been refused, he concludes 
that the machinery man, the paper dealer, or the sup- 
ply people are the only ones who will trust printers, and 
proceeds to lean on them. 

This is a mistaken policy. Every honest and capable 
printer, doing a growing business, can secure banking 
facilities and bank credit if he goes about it in the right 
way. The first essential is to know a banker and let 
him know you. It does not do to have any financial 
secrets from your banker ; if you hide things from him, 
he very rightly considers you unsafe. But if he finds 
you can be depended upon to tell the exact truth, he is 
usually glad to lend you money when the proposition 
is safe. If you have a healthy business and average 
deposits of $1,000, you should be able to borrow $5,000 
on notes, which is enough to enable the buying of con- 
siderable machinery and supplies, and taking advantage 
of the cash discounts. 

Practically all manufacturers and supply houses give 
discounts up to five per cent, for cash in thirty days. 
Suppose you are buying a $10,000 press ; if you get five 
per cent, cash discount you have to pay only $9,500 for 
the machine. If you buy it from the manufacturer you 
pay $10,000 plus six per cent, per year, paying, say, 

113 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

about $3,000 cash and the balance in two years; then 
your interest on $7,000 will amount to $840, so that 
you pay $10,840 for the machine. But if you take 
$3,000 from your business (as you probably would in 
either case) and borrow $7,000 from your bank, the 
following comparative result is obtained: You pay 
$9,500 cash for the machine, and your interest for two 
years at the bank will be $650, so that your total 
amount paid is $10,150, or a saving of $690. 

Question: How much printing would earn $690? 
Allowing ten per cent, for profit you would have to do 
$6,900 worth of printing — which effort is saved in this 
instance by a half hour's work with your banker, and 
if your credit is good you have also saved the placing 
of a mortgage or sale contract on record against your 
plant. 

Such a saving is possible only to the printer who has 
placed himself in a favorable light with his banker. 
The printer who pads his statements to the commercial 
agencies and banks, and is shy of going frankly into 
details, has only himself to blame when the banker is 
also shy of loaning to him. Dissimulation begets dis- 
trust. It is really surprising how accommodating 
banks will be when they have confidence in you. Once 
I was unfortunate enough to be manager for some time 
of a concern with $500 of assets and $30,000 of debts. 
I went to the nearest bank with a $400 accommodation 
note endorsed by one of the backers who wanted to 
keep the bankrupt concern afloat. 

I stated the case to the bank president, and when I 
told him we had debts sixty times in excess of our 
assets, he remarked, "Young man, I like your nerve. 

114 



PROFITABLE FINANCING 

This is the hottest proposition ever put up to me. The 
one thing that interests me is that I know you are 
telling me the truth." He questioned me fully as to 
details, made inquiry about the endorser, who was none 
too strong, and finally agreed to handle our accommo- 
dation notes, not to exceed $5,000 a month. Nothing but 
the fact that he was convinced of our entire honesty, 
and that he sincerely wanted to help us all he could, 
determined the loan. When the endorser subsequently 
assigned, and the concern I was managing was thus 
also forced to assign, the bank did not lose a dollar by 
us, and as I had succeeded in materially reducing the 
debts during the time I handled the business, I was 
made assignee to wind up its affairs. And when I left 
that city and came East, I carried with me two of the 
finest letters of introduction a man could wish for to 
two of the largest New York banks. 

I have cited this case to emphasize the point that the 
banker, who is entrusted with other people's money to 
loan, finds that character and ability are the best guar- 
antees ; and that if you want bank credit you must get 
the banker's confidence. Most employers have started 
from the employee stage and come into business life 
unfitted and unprepared for monetary transactions. 
Good printers — foolish printers also — and many of the 
medium sort — have had sad experiences with their 
finances. The secret of having money available is to 
get acquainted with your banker, and not seek to cover 
up any conditions. Bankers can help you in many ways 
besides direct loans. It is their business to handle 
money and to loan money, and so long as you are 
solvent and conducting your affairs in a sensible way, 

115 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

they can show you how to handle your finances. It 
should be no occasion for anger if they refuse a loan, 
for they are handling money not their own, and have 
to live up to rules that they have learned are safe. If 
instead of getting piqued at a banker who refuses a 
loan, the printer would enquire just what condition is 
lacking to make his loan desirable to the bank, he will 
find out how to shape his course to secure accommoda- 
tion in the future. 

The one thing the banker has to sell is money, and he 
will let it on better terms than the machinery or supply 
man who is not in the business of selling money, but 
simply wants to sell his machinery and supplies and 
who gives your purchase money notes to his banker for 
discount, so that you are really borrowing money sec- 
ond-hand. If the struggling printer will bear these 
things in mind, he will soon find it possible to get into 
the class that discount their bills regularly, and pay 
cash for their machinery. 

It is an error to try to get along without cash. When 
the cash is not in the business it should be borrowed. 
If it cannot be borrowed legitimately, it is because there 
is no sufficient basis for credit, and the concern is best 
closed up. It is true that there are many who advise 
the beginner in business not to borrow, and urge the 
terrors of having debt hanging over one like a sword 
of Damocles; but modern business has developed so 
that very much of it is of necessity conducted on bor- 
rowing. Some of the largest and healthiest businesses 
borrow systematically according to the conditions of 
trade. It appears to have become a commercial neces- 
sity, and the conditions being much more scientifically 

116 



PROFITABLE FINANCING 

understood than formerly, the practice is robbed of 
most of its dangers. 

If the printer waited until he had the cash saved 
from profits to buy new and improved machinery, there 
would be very few large printeries today. The plan is 
to first get a good contract in sight, then to put in the 
press and let the work it does pay for it. And it is a 
legitimate and healthy way to build up a large trade 
and a large plant. 

When I took hold of the Charles Francis Press the 
first thing I did was to borrow $2,000 cash to have 
money to run on until I could make the plant earn it. 
At various times I have been a considerable borrower; 
but always in the way of increasing and developing 
business and profits ; and always a business loan, never 
a social, friendly loan have I made. I never hesitated 
to throw out an unprofitable machine because of the 
apparent book loss of the money I had paid for it. I 
never hesitated to borrow if necessary to secure in the 
place of an antiquated machine one that would do ten 
to twenty per cent, more work. This I found to be the 
way to make money, while keeping out of debt and 
hanging on to an old back-number of a machine 
was as poor policy as hiring a half-trained workman 
when I could get one who knew his trade and was a 
hustler. 

If I purchased a new $5,000 machine, I would fre- 
quently pay the first thousand out of current funds, 
and borrow $3,750 out of the bank, thus saving the 
cash discount of $250, and often I had to pay but five 
per cent, for the $3,750 borrowed, which I could reduce 
at my convenience at 90 day periods. In the meantime, 

117 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

I had the advantage of having the plant clear of 
mortgage, while its value and earning capacity were 
increased. 

Such a practice frees the printer from the curse of 
having several series of notes to meet on fixed dates, 
for the manufacturer is entitled to and expects his 
money as agreed, and can take the machine out if the 
contract is not lived up to. This is the condition that 
pushes printers to taking work at cost to carry out their 
contracts. Had they borrowed from the banks instead, 
they would find the banker would much prefer to renew 
their notes to having them undertake the suicidal policy 
of cutting prices to keep things going, thus taking long 
chances of ultimate ruin. 

In order to have credit with the banker one must be 
careful to whom and under what conditions one gives 
credit. It is not wise to worry prospective customers 
about the possible pay until an order ,is landed. But 
the instant a good-sized order is closed, if the house is 
not well known to you or well rated, it is the safe and 
sensible thing to go to the man who gave the order, and 
say something like this : 

"You realize that we have got to begin to pay out 
cash on your work at once, and will not get it back 
until 30 days after delivery, say 60 days ; we want your 
business, but observe that you are not rated, and so 
must ask you for references, or something that will give 
us a basis for the required credit." 

If the prospective customer gets angry at this, you 
have probably saved a loss. Such a statement can be 
made wholly without offense, and if it appears that the 
customer cannot back up the order sufficiently, the 

118 



PROFITABLE FINANCING 

credit may sometimes be made safe in other ways. 
Suppose it is a book, and that the customer has orders, 
or thinks he has orders, to a total of twice the printing 
costs. It is then the part of wisdom to tell him to have 
the orders made payable to the printing house to guar- 
antee the job; if on inspection the orders are satisfac- 
tory a credit may be given. Even with a fifty per cent, 
leeway, however, the orders might not be a sufficient 
guarantee. It is necessary to test the character of the 
subscribers and the method in which they were taken. 
Having got your information as to credit, it is import- 
ant also to acknowledge and thank the customer for the 
order, and state to whom checks should be made 
payable. 

There was an instance a few years ago in New York, 
where two-thirds of the subscribers to a large encyclo- 
pedia "flunked" when it came to paying the money. 
The proportion is unusual, and was due to unwise and 
unethical methods of soliciting the subscriptions. How- 
ever, most lists of book subscriptions, properly obtained, 
are worth 75 per cent, or more of their face value. 

It is a matter of experience that professional people 
— artists, physicians, clergymen, actors, lawyers, etc. — 
are not usually as reliable in the payment of bills as are 
commercial houses. They do not seem to reason in the 
same way, nor to have the same recognition of the right 
of the seller to cash on delivery or receipt of the money 
on a note when due. 

Therefore, notwithstanding the high social esteem in 
which such may be held, it is unwise to give them 
credits without guarantee. A well-known lecturer has 
been known to order an expensive dinner for a hundred 

119 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

prominent people, with absolutely no means for making 
payment. A prominent sculptor made a bust for a 
famous French actress visiting our shores, had it pre- 
sented by a leading American actor after a theatre per- 
formance, and next day sent the bill for it to the recipi- 
ent. These instances are quoted to show the lack of 
business understanding of a class of professional people, 
and the unwisdom of expecting that they will conform 
to ordinary commercial usages if it happens to be 
inconvenient. 

The master printer needs cash when he starts in 
business, and requires cash ahead every day he remains 
in business, and if he does not plan carefully in advance 
to have this, he is very apt soon to find himself in the 
class of unfortunates who take jobs at cost as fillers to 
meet notes, and who have to hustle every Saturday to 
meet the payroll, which is always .liable to contain a 
less number of dollars for the boss than for many of 
his men. 

Printing is done to make money, and the man who 
finds he has not the money-making capacity and who 
cannot quickly learn methods of finance is better back 
on a salary. There are men fitted to make successes of 
small printing plants who fail in big plants. A man 
should study himself, and learn his own capacity ; if he 
overrates himself he is liable to go under. Many 
printers there have been who are happy and successful 
with plants of $5,000 to $10,000 value, and whose ambi- 
tion has misled them to acquire plants worth $20,000 
to $100,000, and to tie themselves down with a load of 
debt beyond their ability to handle. Growing too fast 
is a serious error for a printer, and all too common. 

120 



PROFITABLE FINANCING 

The lure is very inviting. A customer who is friendly 
offers large work if they will put in say two new cylin- 
ders to handle it quickly. The printer figures the work 
will pay for the machines in three years, and "falls for" 
the lure. But soon he finds that another linotype, an- 
other paper cutter, and some tons of metal and supplies 
are also needed for the increased work, which he has 
not the resources to handle. Being in for it, he gambles, 
and gives the orders for the additional machinery and 
supplies, until he is tied up for double the debt he 
figured on. This at once puts him in the class of "note- 
meeters," and even if he pulls through and meets all his 
obligations, by the time his hair is gray he is apt to find 
himself worn out and with a worn-out plant, all paid 
for but so antique that he is a back number. And all 
because he went too deeply into debt, and when cramped 
tried to pull himself out by taking work at cost. 

It is not so much the actual debt that weighs down 
the printer, as the fear that the firm that holds his notes 
will sell him out. This it is that unnerves him, and 
causes him to estimate too low to get in more cash, thus 
undermining his own business and that of his neigh- 
bors. As a matter of fact, the machinery houses and 
supply people never close up and sell out a printer if 
they can help it. They invariably do all they can to 
keep him afloat and help him out. They do not want 
their machinery back, and the extension of notes does 
not hurt them seriously. 

The average machinery house, on making a sale, 
banks and discounts at least a portion of the notes in 
order to have live capital. It borrows money at five and 
charges the printer six per cent., the one per cent, dif- 

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PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

f erence paying for the trouble of handling the notes. 
Extending notes means no loss of either principal or 
interest to the machinery house, only less live capital. 
The hardship of carrying the notes is therefore not 
nearly so great as many printers think, who are un- 
familiar with banking methods. 

The best way for a printer to maintain his financial 
standing, when he finds he is loaded down with more 
notes than he can meet, is not to cut prices to get cash, 
but to go frankly to the firms who have his paper, and 
state his case. Being large creditors they are inter- 
ested in his success, and they will not crowd him to the 
wall, but give him every chance to pull through. 

It is wise for the printer who gives notes to buy as 
much as possible from one concern, so that his notes 
are held by the same people. He then receives more 
attention in the way of repairs, and extension of his 
notes is easier and simpler. 

The printer who is closed up and sold out has usually 
made the unfortunate conditions himself. A case is 
recalled of a printer who had piled up debt and done 
work too cheaply, until it appeared that he was worth 
just about nothing, and that only by hard struggling 
could he keep going. Instead of stating his case frankly 
to the people he owed, he concealed details from them, 
and when asked to show his books flatly refused. This 
created suspicion, and marked him as an unsafe man. 
At this time one friend, who knew the inside of his 
affairs, apprized him that he had an asset in a lot of 
unbound books that had been left on his hands, which 
were coming into demand, and could be bound up and 
marketed. But no, the printer would not bother with 

122 



PROFITABLE FINANCING 

them, devoting his energies to getting in more work at 
or below cost, and trying to land a partner with some 
capital. He might have obtained the partner, had he 
been frank, but the man who would have bought into 
and financed his place was frightened away by his 
secrecy and evident desire to cover up some things. 
After a time the mortgagees decided the case was hope- 
less and sold him out. 

Other printers there are who go down because they 
have made the mistake of depending almost wholly on 
one customer, and when he deserts they cannot fill the 
vacant place in their shop. If a printer is almost wholly 
dependent on one customer, there are only two ways of 
making the print shop safe — one is to make the cus- 
tomer a partner in the printing office and the other to 
become a partner of the customer in his publishing 
business or whatever it is. Such partnership ties the 
two concerns together, and prevents the chance of the 
printer being deserted. But there is the added risk 
that if the partners disagree, unpleasant complications 
may arise. In either case the failure of the customer's 
business is apt to carry down the printery that is 
largely dependent on it for work. 

Everybody in New York printing circles remembers 
the case of a large New York printing house which 
some years ago went to the wall because their principal 
customer, a large publishing house, decided to equip a 
printing plant of their own. The printers, with ma- 
chinery unfit for the sort of work they could pick up, 
and with a ruinously large overhead, stumbled along a 
couple of years, and then saw their plant auctioned off 
at a small fraction of its cost. 

123 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

In another familiar New York instance, one of the 
most clear-headed and brainy men in the printing busi- 
ness found himself confronted with a similar problem. 
He arranged to be a partner of the publishers, and 
wrote a contract binding the publishers to stayt with 
the printing house until every dollar's worth of ma- 
chinery bought for their work was paid for. 

Another way of guarding against the one-customer 
danger is not to allow any one customer to use more 
than one-fifth or one-sixth of the plant's capacity. 
There may be other ways, but the thing to be borne in 
mind is that at some time it is almost sure ruin to 
produce conditions where the bulk of the work of a 
printery may be removed on a few months' notice ; and 
it is folly to buy thousands of dollars' worth of new 
machinery to produce the work of a large customer 
who gives a contract for only a year at a time. 

Our sympathies go out to the "big printer with an old 
plant," to use a homely but forceful phrase, as we all 
know he has a well-nigh hopeless proposition. Often 
such a man hangs on, works hard all his days, and dies 
with scarce a dollar, respected because he paid his 
debts, but with a record of never having been able to 
save for himself or his family. 

This possibility of being lured out of the safe path 
may be largely avoided by establishing the habit of 
saving early in one's career, and taking money earned 
by printing out of the business, and putting it into real 
estate, life insurance, building and loan stock, or the 
like. This is what the average high-class employee 
does, and the employing printer should be able to do as 
much. If he cannot do it, he may well question his 

124 



PROFITABLE FINANCING 

ability to make a real profit in running a printing 
business. 

Correct buying is a large part of profitable financing. 
The printer who buys only second-hand machinery is 
all too apt to be a second-hand man all his days. The 
wise plan is to buy the newest and best in the market. 
If it costs more, it will the sooner pay for itself. How 
can a printer with 1,200-an-hour cylinders that have 
to carry $200 each a year of repairs expect to compete 
with the printer who runs 1,800-an-hour presses that 
stand up to their work day and night if necessary? 
The rapid presses are producing 50 per cent, more, 
with scarcely any difference in the overhead charge. 

It is poor financing to buy anything cheap. The best 
help and the best machines earn the largest profits, and 
the poorest ones seldom earn any profit. Delusion as to 
profits is fatal to many a printing office. How often 
has some such talk as this been heard between master 
printers : 

Rush— "I cleared $10,000 last year." 

Bustle — "That's fine. May I ask how you invested 
it?" 

Rush — "Oh, it's in my business — new machinery, you 
know." 

The chances are that Rush has no clear idea how 
much he made, and it is almost a sure thing that a 
modern accountant would calculate his profits at less 
than half his offhand figure. The sum he draws in cash 
weekly is a much closer measure of his prosperity. 
The fellow who thinks he is making $10,000 a year is 
apt to overlook that he ought to take off $4,000 for 
interest and depreciation, and that his right salary of 

125 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

$4,000 should come off also, leaving actual profits of 
only $2,000. 

What should the printer do who realizes that he is 
now in a slough of debt, with an office full of "fillers," 
and that he is tied hand and foot? Is there any salva- 
tion for him ? 

Yes, he should go to his closest business friends, who 
are interested in his success, including the people to 
whom he owes the most money, and state his case fully 
and plainly, keeping back nothing, and acknowledging 
the errors of judgment that put him in a hole, and ask 
for endorsements and extension of credits to relieve 
him sufficiently to enable him to throw out his non- 
paying work, and keep things going until he can get in 
enough of the profitable kind. 

A few years ago a New York manager took charge 
of an old plant with $100,000 worth of annual business, 
and inside of 90 days threw out $70,000 of it because it 
was not paying overhead charges. Within a year he 
succeeded in refilling the plant with paying work. 
About $5,000 cash was utilized in changing the business 
from an unprofitable to a profitable one. What has 
been done can be done again. 



126 



Development of Periodicals in America 

THE first American publications were very cor- 
rectly described as news-letters, and soon these 
grew into newspapers. When the Colonial papers 
were well established, and all the larger cities of the 
United States had newspapers and printing offices, the 
literary magazine made its appearance. The time-hon- 
ored father of American typos, Benjamin Franklin, ap- 
pears to be entitled to the credit of the idea. A won- 
derful man was B. F., and we should be willing to take 
his word for it that he and not Andrew Bradford origi- 
nated the magazine. 

In Philadelphia, in 1741, Benjamin Franklin issued 
The General Magazine or Historical Chronicle just 
three days after Andrew Bradford published The 
American or a Monthly Vieiv. Franklin charged that 
Bradford heard what he was doing, stole his idea, and 
rushed out his magazine ahead, and there was much 
recrimination. But as Bradford's magazine lived 
through only three issues, and Franklin's through only 
six, it was conclusively proved that at the time there 
was no demand for, and no money to be made from a 
monthly magazine in the American colonies. It may be 
remarked here that the Saturday Evening Post, of Phil- 
adelphia, which dates from 1728, was regarded as a 
newspaper until recent years. 

Between 1741 and 1800, according to A. Tassin, in 
his valuable book, "The Magazine in America," forty- 
five other magazines were started in the country, exist- 
ing usually for a few months, and occasionally for a few 

127 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

years. The New England Magazine of 1758 was per- 
haps the most pretentious, consisting of 60 pages and 
selling for 6d. The Boston Magazine of 1784 had two 
engravings and a piece of music in each issue. All 
these early magazines were, of course, printed on the 
hand press, and those before 1825 mostly on wooden 
hand presses, producing only two or four pages at an 
impression. 

The typesetters were paid a few shillings a week, but 
editors and writers were supposed to work for the love 
of it, and probably the first salaried editor of an Ameri- 
can magazine was Thomas Paine, who in 1775 was 
hired by The Pennsylvania Magazine for £25 a year. 

The most successful of the early magazines was The 
Columbian, which at its best, in 1792, swelled to 80 
pages, and "cost over £100 a month to print." It had to 
suspend because the post office levied letter rates of 
postage on its circulation. Thus early did the trou- 
bles between the post office and the literary magazine 
begin. 

The New York Magazine, founded in 1790, was the 
first to thrive in the big city, and lasted several years. 
The first magazine to pay real profits was The North 
American, started in 1815, as The Monthly Anthology, 
and later becoming the famous North American Re- 
view. In 1820 The North American announced that it 
paid its writers $1 a page uniformly, and that no copy 
of the magazine was thrown in. This was at least 
twice what the typesetters got. 

Jared Sparks owned a three-quarter interest in The 
North American, and sold it in 1830 for $15,000, or 
$9,100 more than it cost him in 1824. He stated that 

128 



DEVELOPMENT OF PERIODICALS IN AMERICA 

he had realized $22,000 from the publication during the 
six years of his ownership. 

The Youth's Companion began its career in Boston 
in 1827, and has progressed quietly but uniformly to 
this day. 

After about 1830 the printing of magazines began 
to be done on Adams presses and Hoe drum cylinders. 
The cost of production was trifling from the modern 
viewpoint; as they carried no advertising they had to 
depend solely upon their subscriptions for support. As 
few of the magazines before 1840 attained much more 
than 1,000 circulation, and as they sold usually at 6d, 
or 12 cents modern money, it is obvious that there was 
little chance for profit. 

The Dial, living from 1840 to 1844, set a faster pace 
for magazine publishers, being the first to publish writ- 
ings by George William Curtis, and also buying articles 
from Emerson, Thoreau, Dwight and Dana. Does it 
not seem incongruous that these leaders of thought, 
many of whose words will ring on down through the 
ages, received less pay in many instances, than the 
average modern hack-writer and news-scribbler? 

In 1844 Littel's Living Age was founded, and made 
good its title by existing through all the years, so that 
now its issue fills several bookshelves. Gleason's 
(afterwards Ballou's) Pictorial came along about 1848, 
and was the first light literature magazine, as well as 
the first to carry many pictures. It hailed from the 
Hub, and had on its staff a young man named Carter, 
who, after learning the methods of catering to the taste 
for popular light reading, came to New York, in 1852, 
and founded Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and 

129 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

twenty odd years later Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly. 
They became so popular that he was later impelled to 
change his name to Frank Leslie. He seems to 
have been the first good business man in the 
magazine business in New York, and the first to cater 
to the demand for pictures, undeterred by the high cost 
of wood engraving. His only real competitor in the 
field of light magazine literature for many years was 
the famous Robert Bonner, of The New York Ledger. 
There were, however, a host of imitators. 

The talented and erratic Edgar A. Poe appeared as 
a brilliant star among the magazine writers in 1838, 
when he edited The Gentleman's Magazine at $10 a 
week. The pay was not so small as it appears, for Poe 
would work but a few hours a day, and his fondness 
for the cheering glass made him very irregular. The 
second time the magazine was late because of his 
failure to show up for his duties, he was "fired. " Later 
he came to New York, and for a time edited The Broad- 
wuy Journal. The magazine went bankrupt, and Poe 
bid it in for $50, tendering a note endorsed by Horace 
Greeley. Of course Greeley had to pay it, and of course 
the magazine "busted" again. 

Godey's Magazine started in Philadelphia in 1830, 
and Graham's Casket was first issued near the same 
date. These were the first magazines to approximate 
modern prices paid their writers, and they also directed 
more attention to excellence of mechanical execution. 
In 1845 it is said they paid $300 to $500 per issue to 
contributors, and their printing bill was considerably 
higher. The newspapers took to stealing their best 
articles, and once an advance sheet of Godey's got out, 

130 



DEVELOPMENT OF PERIODICALS IN AMERICA 

and a newspaper appropriated most of the matter, and 
circulated it twelve days ahead of Godey's date of publi- 
cation. After that lesson all the magazines copyrighted 
their issues. 

The Atlantic was planned in 1857 by a group of 
famous New Englanders, including Cabot, Longfellow, 
Lowell, Holmes, Emerson and Phillips. They engaged 
Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Prescott to give the 
magazine the feminine touch. All are dead and gone, 
but The Atlantic lives on, and has given us Howells, 
the last of that great coterie of gifted writers. 

Chicago had thirteen magazines previous to 1860, of 
which The Gem of the Prairie and Lakeside Monthly 
were most notable. San Francisco had a magazine in 
1854, The Pioneer, which is known to fame as having 
first published Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog" story. 

In March, 1850, Harper's Magazine was born. The 
Harper Brothers were both the leading printers and 
leading book publishers of New York, and far-sighted 
business men. They had the best machinery and best 
equipment of any concern of their time, and they at 
once set a new high mark in typography, in literary con- 
tents and in efficiency. They outclassed all their com- 
petitors, even the gifted Frank Leslie, and were re- 
warded with 50,000 circulation for their magazine 
within six months, the figures being then a record. 
With volume six their total rose to 118,000, and they 
began electrotyping their forms. It was natural that 
Harper's Weekly and Harper's Bazar should follow, 
each being a leader in its special field for more than a 
generation. 

The first reliable figures of magazine circulation 

131 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

that can be found after a thorough search are 
dated 1832, when the 14 monthlies issued in 
New York City claimed totals aggregating 401,800 
for city circulation and 30,900 outside, demonstrating 
that at this period the national magazine was non- 
existent. The growth in the next 18 years was very 
rapid, and in 1850 there were about 50 magazines and 
periodicals in New York City, with a claimed circula- 
tion of a little over 5,000,000 total, of which less than 
8 per cent, was outside circulation. The leading maga- 
zines of 1850 were religious, and their age, circulations, 
etc., were stated as follows: 

PERIODICAL AGE CIRCULATION 

Observer (Congregational) 29 years 18,000 

Christian Advocate (Methodist) ... 26 " 29,000 

Evangelist (Presbyterian) 22 " 12,000 

Recorder (Baptist) 13 " 8,000 

Freeman's Journal (Catholic) 12 " 8,000 

Independent 4 " 10,000 

Christian Intelligencer (D. Kef.) . . 22 " 6,000 

Christian Embassador 2 " 6,000 

The religious magazines began in the 18th century, 
The Christian Examiner being the foremost of the early 
ones. Later The Christian Advocate and The Observer 
came to the front. Each large religious body had its 
organ, and the rivalry between them was strong, tend- 
ing to widen the breach between denominations. The 
Independent came into the field in 1846, born of the 
idea of religious unity, being evangelical but non-sec- 
tarian. Under the editorship of Henry Ward Beecher 
and later of Theodore Tilton it became most influential. 

132 



DEVELOPMENT OF PERIODICALS IN AMERICA 

The religious periodicals were the first to take adver- 
tising, and they were not over-particular as to what 
they took. Columns of medical and other questionable 
advertising were carried, of the sort that have now 
long been tabooed by respectable journals. The public 
conscience was not then awakened to the harmfulness 
of inducing people to waste their money. 

In 1856 there were 69 magazines and periodicals 
published in New York City, eight being religious, 
seven medical, five children's, four women's and three 
youths' magazines, besides two publications devoted to 
dentistry. The trade paper had not yet been thought 
practicable. 

The supemacy of Harper's and Godey's in the maga- 
zine field was disputed in 1870 when Scribner's Maga- 
zine entered the field. They made such an excellent 
publication that it gained rapidly in public favor, and 
Roswell Smith, seeing the possibility of taking the lead, 
formed a company and bought the publication of the 
house of Scribner, changing the name to The Century 
Magazine. The Century Co. is said to have put $350,000 
into improvements in the property. The printing was 
placed with The De Vinne Press, which Theodore L. 
De Vinne had located on Lafayette Place, installing 
what was then the finest printing plant in America. 

Hard packing printing was just then coming in, and 
Mr. De Vinne wrote several illustrated articles, showing 
how the pictures of The Century were so attractively 
printed, and illustrating the nature of the overlay. This 
led many to credit the De Vinne Press and The Century 
Magazine with introducing the new method of printing, 
something neither ever claimed. Undoubtedly Mr. De 

133 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

Vinne helped make the reputation of The Century, just 
as the magnificently printed Century helped make the 
reputation of Mr. De Vinne, rightly named "the dean 
of American printers." 

It may astonish some to know that the high-class 
magazines did not accept advertising until 1870, and 
that Harper's Magazine steadily refused to carry adver- 
tising other than their own until 1882. On one occa- 
sion the Howe Sewing Machine Company offered 
Harper's $18,000 for a year's use of the back cover of 
the magazine, being $1,500 an issue, but this was 
refused. But when The Century, Leslie's, Godey's and 
others began to reap large returns from their advertis- 
ing pages, and to spend part of the money thus received 
in bettering the magazines, while other magazines at a 
lower price were entering the field, the Harpers saw 
that it would be a mistake to continue to turn aside 
proffered advertising, and entered the race which has 
ever since been so hotly maintained for a great volume 
of national advertising. 

In 1894 the Christmas issue of The Century contained 
134 pages of advertising and Harper's 144 pages, and 
this may be set as the high tide of supremacy of these 
famous magazines. The Cosmopolitan and Munsey's 
had entered the field, and taking advantage of the low 
cost of photo-engraving, had brought out profusely 
illustrated publications at 15 and 10 cents respectively, 
and the day of the low-priced magazine of mammoth 
circulation had begun. 

Class and trade papers began to appear nearly a hun- 
dred years ago. The first were medical publications. 
The American Journal of Medicine was founded in 

134 



DEVELOPMENT OF PERIODICALS IN AMERICA 

Philadelphia in 1820, and The American Journal of 
Pharmacy appeared there five years later; while The 
Medical and Surgical Journal came out in Boston in 
1828. By 1850 there were five medical journals in New 
York City and one in Chicago. The oldest railway 
publication is The Railway Mechanical Engineer, 
founded as The Railroad and Engineering Journal in 
1832. The American Banker, first in the financial 
field, dates from 1836 ; The Legal Intelligencer of Phila- 
delphia from 1843; while the old reliable Scientific 
American has been with us since 1845. The Dry Goods 
Economist made its initial bow in 1846, as did also The 
Banker's Magazine; The ABC Pathfinder was started 
in Boston in 1849. The next decade marked the birth 
of The Law Register of Philadelphia in 1852, The Insur- 
ance Monitor in 1853, The Iron Age in 1855, and The 
Druggistfs Circular in 1857. These were followed by 
The Army and Navy Journal in 1863, The Tobacco 
Leaf in 1864, Turf, Field and Farm in 1865, and The 
Engineering and Mining Journal in 1866. 

In 1869 the country had recovered somewhat from the 
Civil War depression, and a period of trade paper de- 
velopment began that has continued ever since. In that 
year were born The American Grocer, Coal Trade Jour- 
nal, Jewelers' Circular and Hullinger's Guide, It now 
became apparent that there was good money in a trade 
paper for every common industry, trade, business or 
profession, and during the seventies and eighties such 
periodicals were started in every large city in the coun- 
try, the preference being for locations in New York, 
Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. The more promi- 
nent successes founded in New York City in the seven- 

135 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

ties include The Oil, Paint and Drug Reporter, Elec- 
trical World, Engineering News, Metal Worker, Paver 
Trade Journal, American Stationer, American Ex- 
porter, Carpentry and Building, Bradstreet's and Music 
Trade Review. During the same period there were 
established in Chicago The Drover's Journal, Hotel 
World, Confectioner and Baker, and American Con- 
tractor. 

The leading printing trade papers all date from the 
eighties, The Inland Printer coming out in 1883, The 
National Printer-Journalist and The Journalist (now 
The Editor and Publisher) in 1884, The American 
Bookmaker (now The American Printer) in 1885, and 
Printers' Ink in 1888. 

There was similar periodical activity in other indus- 
tries and lines of human endeavor, and the 1890 edition 
of Averts Newspaper Annual lists a full thousand of 
class and trade papers in the United States and Canada, 
while the 1917 edition contains over 4,000. 

It was also in the eighties that the great contest of the 
magazines was begun. Frank Munsey started hi3 Ar- 
gosy in 1882 and Munsey's in 1889, while The Cosmo- 
politan was born in 1886. The field soon became 
crowded, and early in the nineties Munsey made his 
great bid for popular f aVor by cutting the retail price 
to ten cents. He won out, and the low-priced magazine 
became a tremendous factor in advertising. 

From the printer's viewpoint there is another side 
to this wonderful story of the rapid growth and pros- 
perity of magazines, periodicals and trade papers. 
Nearly every one of them represents a big job of print- 
ing, and it is more and more apparent that it does not 

136 



DEVELOPMENT OF PERIODICALS IN AMERICA 

pay the publishers of weeklies and monthlies to operate 
their own printing plants. More and more special ma- 
chinery has been developed for the rapid production of 
magazines and periodicals of large circulation, and 
these are so costly that they have to be kept going all 
the time to yield a profit. A few publishers owning sev- 
eral publications of very large circulation have suc- 
ceeded in making their printing plants pay, but it is 
probable that others regret the investment. 

In the case of monthly publications it is especially 
disadvantageous for the publisher to own his own 
plant. Nearly all the work of mechanical production is 
now desired within a few days, and the rest of the 
month the plant remains idle or caters for undesirable 
jobs as "fillers." One famous and successful publisher 
of two magazines a few years ago tried the experiment, 
and established a magnificent printing plant not many 
miles out of New York. Very soon it developed that the 
cost was much higher than he had paid magazine print- 
ers for doing the work ; the reason being that his plant 
was working smoothly for only about six days a month, 
running day and night another six, and not half busy 
the other thirteen working days. 

To remedy this condition and keep the plant busy, 
several other magazines were started. This assisted 
economical production in the plant, but the new maga- 
zines were put on the stands in competition with those 
already established, and got sales largely at the expense 
of the older ones from the same house. Some of the 
new magazines could not be made to cover expenses, 
and none of them have been able to publish strictly up- 
to-date articles. 

137 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The successful magazines, class papers and trade 
papers of today mostly give their printing to some large 
magazine printery, of which there are a dozen in New 
York, as many in Chicago and a lesser number in each 
large city of the country. These large printing plants 
turn out the periodicals like daily newspapers, as is 
detailed more fully in the next chapter. They will put 
$100,000 worth of machinery at work for a single day, 
and produce a magazine for as little or less than is pos- 
sible by slower methods, and the publisher has the ad- 
vantage of keeping both advertising and reading matter 
forms open until the last minute. 



138 



The Making of a Magazine 

THE attractively covered, tightly bound, beauti- 
fully printed magazine that finds its way regu- 
larly to your library table is a marvel of modern 
manufacturing, grown familiar by its frequent pres- 
ence. Few pause to consider how much valuable infor- 
mation is gathered from all directions, shaped by a 
small army of brilliant writers, condensed to the last 
degree of forceful presentation, profusely illustrated, 
and then printed with newspaper speed and delivered 
as a magazine at the trifling charge of 15 to 25 cents 
per copy. 

Every issue of a popular magazine represents enough 
expenditure to support one man comfortably all his life- 
time, and a few of the most widely circulated cost 
as much per issue as the living bills of an average Am- 
erican family from their births to the cemetery. There 
is enough paper in a large magazine's yearly issue to 
make a page-wide strip from the earth to the moon and 
back again. Since magazines now supply so large a 
share of the public's reading matter, it is worth while 
to review briefly the methods of making a modern mag- 
azine. 

THE EDITORIAL WORKSHOP 
Every magazine begins in the editorial rooms; here 
its policy is shaped by a chosen few in consultation, 
and the plans laid that give it reputation and prestige. 
The main force of editors carry out the lines of work 
decided on by the powers above them. A popular maga- 
zine will employ from ten to twenty editors, and a 

139 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

number more of valued literary assistants who might be 
termed "near-editors." Then there are contributing 
editors who write or are responsible for departments, 
and always a large circle of regular and occasional 
writers and contributors, besides the flood of unsolicited 
manuscripts that come to the tables of the office force. 

The best magazines long ago ceased to depend upon 
manuscripts sent in for their leading articles. They 
decide in conference what will be the most attractive 
subjects for the near future, and they ask this and that 
prominent writer if he can supply such and such ma- 
terial. The leading articles are almost always a de- 
velopment of several trained minds working in har- 
mony, though one writer's name usually carries the 
composition. 

In a publication like the Review of Reviews this 
method is considerably modified. Here the magazines 
and newspapers of the preceding few weeks form the 
basis out of which the publication grows. The editors, 
instead of being backed by a corps of paid writers, have 
to select their material from several thousand news- 
papers and periodicals printed all over the world. It 
is their task to discover what is best and most interest- 
ing in current printed matter, and review and summar- 
ize it, and bring it into the most concrete form for the 
perusal of busy people. Every issue must be a combi- 
nation of striking interest, as the demand is that every 
number shall be better than the preceding one. This is 
where the strain comes on the editorial force. Every 
clever writer and editor can do exceptional work at 
times, but in magazine making there is a steady pres- 
sure for exceptional product all the time ! 

140 



THE MAKING OF A MAGAZINE 

Take the December, 1916, Review of Reviews, as an 
instance of efficient work done under pressure. The 
leading topic in the public mind was of course the elec- 
tions. The vote was taken Nov. 7 ; it was the 17th be- 
fore we felt reasonably sure that Wilson was elected. 
The editors had just one week in which to make an in- 
telligent and masterly summary of results that would 
be acceptable to the reading public the first week in 
December. The work had to be laid out tentatively, 
with opportunity to shift New Hampshire, Minnesota 
and California to the other side at the last minute, if 
necessary. The treatment had to be more comprehen- 
sive and better visualized than any newspaper report 
or summary, though the best editors of the country 
had been presenting the subject for weeks from innum- 
erable angles. No excuses for mediocrity, much less 
blunders, could be accepted. 

Such was the task, and in compiling the maps that 
showed spectacularly the success or lack of success of 
each party at a glance, and the States where there was 
no real contest, and the tremendous spread of the Pro- 
hibition vote, and the influence of the women vote, and 
writing around these maps an up-to-the-minute story, 
with latest figures and expressive cartoons, the editors 
achieved a marked success. 

Similar modern methods mark the progress of de- 
partments of editorial work in all the leading maga- 
zines, but they must be passed over here. 

THE BUSINESS OFFICE 

This department of magazine production has a very 
different task, which naturally divides into a circula- 

141 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

tion department, an advertising department, and a de- 
partment of general oversight of miscellaneous details, 
such as keeping in touch with printer and engraver, 
purchasing paper and supplies, handling correspond- 
ence, etc. The circulation department has the heavy 
duty of seeing that deliveries are properly and prompt- 
ly made, that all subscriptions possible are renewed as 
they expire, that the newsstands everywhere are prop- 
erly supplied, neither too many nor too few at any 
point, and that sales are systematically pushed and ex- 
tended by modern methods of stimulation. The simple 
maintaining of a circulation in the hundreds of thou- 
sands is a mammoth job in these days of sharp maga- 
zine competition. 

The advertising department has frequently to secure 
and arrange as many pages as the editorial department. 
Every advertisement must be made conspicuous, and as 
far as possible every advertiser must be helped to make 
money, for if they do not see a profit they will drop out. 
This work calls for a force of expert, highly paid and 
intensely active men. Here is where most of the 
money is earned, but it cannot be secured unless the edi- 
torial and circulation departments are also doing top- 
notch work, all pointing harmoniously to one end — a 
better magazine more widely read every month. Mod- 
ern advertising is both an art and a business. While 
it makes fortunes for many, it requires most accurate 
manipulation to secure results. All large advertising 
is now a part of some well-developed selling plan in- 
volving a multitude of detail. Advertised goods are 
sold mostly through retail stores, and most magazine 
advertising is done by manufacturers and wholesalers 

142 



THE MAKING OF A MAGAZINE 

to assist the retailers by creating a demand for and an 
interest in the goods. 

IN THE PRINTING OFFICE 

The mechanical production is the end of the maga- 
zine that I know most about. From the foregoing it 
will be evident that in order to make an acceptable 
magazine the editors must hold back their copy till late 
in the month. To meet their requirements, day and 
night shifts of linotypers have to be ready at all times 
to take in hand large stacks of copy, and to deliver the 
proofs to the editors in five or six hours. It is this hold- 
ing of costly machines and high-priced workmen ready 
to handle rushes at any hour of the day and night that 
makes magazine manufacturing parallel daily news- 
paper production. Every magazine now requires that 
most of its type composition and all of its printing be 
done within a very few days. 

Large magazine plants nowadays employ batteries 
of linotypes, machines costing several thousand dollars 
each, standing in a row. Each machine has a key- 
board, something like a typewriter, but the product 
may be lines in any one of a hundred sorts of types, 
in various sizes and widths. The flexibility of these 
machines has been wonderfully increased in recent 
years. Some of the latest models carry 720 characters 
obtainable from one keyboard. 

The Charles Francis Press does the printing and 
mailing of a publication every business day in the 
year, and some days two or three are issued. They 
follow each other with the same regularity as the 
editions of a morning or evening newspaper, but pre- 

143 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

sent a vastly more complicated series of mechanical 
problems. Every magazine is different from every 
other, in make-up, number of pages, and style, the 
number of copies is different, and the printers have to 
deal with a different customer and a different set of 
editors and advertising men. 

One group of magazine editors may have most of 
their copy in type a week before the day of going to 
press; another group of editors are obliged to throw 
the bulk of their copy into the linotype room in the last 
two days of the month. Every magazine holds open at 
least one of its advertising forms until the latest pos- 
sible hour, in order to accommodate all possible adver- 
tising. So the last day of putting a magazine to press 
is always the rush day, and it may be necessary to turn 
the efforts of half the composing room force on the 
one job to put it to press on the hour. 

PARTICULAR PROOFREADING 

When the editorial proofs come flying back to the 
linotypers, the numerous corrections and changes must 
be quickly and accurately made, and revised by eagle- 
eyed proofreaders. Compositors, linotypers, make-up 
men and editors may make blunders or overlook errors, 
but the proofreader is supposed to be a perfect model of 
accuracy. He is hired to catch or stop other people's 
lapses, and he gets the blame if anything goes wrong. 
When it is remembered that there are more than a mil- 
lion separate types or matrices used in a single issue of 
the Review of Reviews, it is marvellous that so few of 
them are misplaced, and that serious errors do not oc- 
cur more frequently. Yet I do not believe that the 

144 



THE MAKING OF A MAGAZINE 

Review editors feel obliged to "call down" the printing 
office readers once a year for a serious lapse. 

Often the most startling errors are caught on the 
final reading, for all magazine matter is read at least 
twice, and often three or four times by the printing 
office reader, in addition to the readings it has in the 
editorial and advertising departments. If some of the 
pictures are completed only at the last instant, it is 
very easy for two pictures of the same size to be trans- 
posed. Of course if one picture is a steamship and the 
other a cartoon the discrepancy with the adjacent read- 
ing matter is easily noticed" but when it is a case of 
transposing the portraits of two supposedly prominent 
men whose faces are unknown to the force, the danger 
of their being passed is apparent. Nothing but eternal 
vigilance prevents such blunders in every issue of an 
illustrated magazine. The system relied on for pre- 
venting it is that all photographs or line-cuts of people, 
or the like, shall have the name plainly written on the 
edge when received by the printer, and this guide is fol- 
lowed and checked up before the pages go to the electro- 
typer. 

Headings and picture titles, being put into type sepa- 
rately from the reading matter, are also liable to such 
transposition, and the proofreader responsible for the 
final foundry proofs bears a heavy load. With long 
experience, readers become extraordinarily acute, and 
actually seem to sense errors. I have seen a head reader 
handed a sheet on which a junior reader had spent two 
hours, and in five minutes spot two errors — the only 
errors left in the sheet. They seem to develop a sort 
of sixth sense, which doubtless comes from habit, rec- 

145 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

ognizing where errors are most likely to be found in the 
final reading. 

ILLUSTRATION FEATURES 

More and more the magazines tend to become picture 
books. The publishers of monthly and weekly periodi- 
cals probably spend more money with artists than do 
all other publishers combined. The drawings or paint- 
ings of the artists are reproduced by photo-engraving, 
of which there are two general classes, and numerous 
sub-classes. The half-tone is made by photographing 
directly on a copper plate through a screen of ruled 
glass which breaks the picture up into fine dots. This 
plate can be etched, eating out the light parts so that 
the dark parts print black and show the picture. Half- 
tones require to be printed on smooth, hard-surfaced 
paper, hence those sections of a magazine carrying such 
illustrations are commonly printed on a paper different 
from the remainder of the publication. 

Pen-drawings may be reproduced as line-cuts, and 
printed with type matter on rough-surfaced paper. 
Hence it is usually necessary to make up a magazine 
fundamentally with reference to the pictures. This 
condition is intensified by the growing custom of us- 
ing pictures in two or more colors, which involves color 
forms. It becomes necessary to decide in advance on an 
even number of half-tone pages, as 16, 32, 64, and an 
even number of color pages, as 4 or 8, and an even 
number of remaining pages. When the pictures are all 
laid out, and the drawings and photographs sent to the 
engraver, with directions as to size and style, the next 
step is to position them in the pages and arrange the 

146 



THE MAKING OF A MAGAZINE 

reading matter around them. The engravings are 
mounted on blocks type-high, and each must receive its 
proper title or legend, and be kept close to the reading 
matter going with it, while at the same time there must 
be harmonious balancing of the pictures. If one pic- 
ture is missing or out of place the whole scheme may 
be thrown out of gear. 

As the pages of pictures and type are brought to- 
gether, read and "o.k.ed" they go to the electrotype 
foundry. If the number of copies to be printed is very 
large the electrotyper makes a nickel or steel surface 
to the ordinary copper shell, securing a most faithful 
and durable duplicate of the most intricate and artistic 
half-tone pictures. Sometimes four to eight sets of 
electrotypes are made in order that several covers may 
be run on one sheet, or several presses run on duplicate 
forms. 

IN THE PRESSROOM 

Those pages having the finest illustrations or art pic- 
tures naturally are sent to press first, as they require 
some time for "make-ready," to bring them out artis- 
tically. This making ready of pictures includes first 
a careful leveling of each picture, so that a clear, flat 
print is obtained. By judicious use of thin paper, pasted 
under the printing surface, or inserted under portions 
of the cuts, the dark parts of the picture are made to 
receive more pressure in printing than the light parts, 
and thus the effects are heightened. Overlays for in- 
tricate pictures are cut in advance, and pasted on in 
position when the form is on the press. By this means 
even a large form, with numerous pictures, represent- 
ing several days' work in cutting overlays, may be 

147 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

started up for printing within a few hours after the 
last plate is clamped on the press. 

If the printing is to be done on flat-bed presses, the 
plates of the pages are flat ; if on web, rotary perfecting 
presses, the plates have to be curved, that they may be 
fitted to the surface of the printing cylinders, or plate 
cylinders, as they are technically called. The finer 
printing and the odd forms have to be run on flat-bed 
cylinder machines, of which the Miehle press is the 
best known type. These will handle sheets of large 
size, and some of them are arranged to print two colors 
at a single operation. They are practically automa- 
tic, when fed or supplied with sheets by an automatic 
feeder. 

For the most rapid magazine work the rotary web 
press, that prints from an endless roll or rolls of paper, 
like the great newspaper presses, is now in vogue. But 
as the magazine requires a higher grade of printing 
than the newspaper, special machines have to be em- 
ployed, running slower than newspaper presses, and 
arranged to handle smaller pages. A single rotary web 
magazine press that delivers 96 pages of a magazine 
continuously, at a speed of about 6,000 an hour, costs 
$25,000 to install, and $60 to $75 a day to keep it going. 

GATHERING AND BINDING OPERATIONS 
There are two general methods of making a maga- 
zine, involving radical differences of methods and ma- 
chinery. One involves printing it in separate sheets, 
usually in 32s, on cylinder presses. This is well adapted 
to a magazine of say, 20,000 circulation and 160 pages 
bulk. Electrotyping is not necessary for such a publi- 

148 



THE MAKING OF A MAGAZINE 

cation, except to preserve advertising and other pages 
for future printings. The ten forms of 16 pages each 
are printed on ten cylinder presses, and can be run off 
in about 18 hours. The printed sheets are then auto- 
matically fed to a battery of folding machines, which 
operate considerably faster than the presses. The 
automatic feeders pick up deftly the top sheet of a 
pile, blow air under it, and pass it accurately into the 
printing press or folding machine, doing both better 
and faster work than was formerly accomplished by 
hand feeding. On a 20,000 edition the folded sheets 
may be gathered by hand, wire-stitched, and the covers 
glued on by hand. The operators become very expert 
at gathering and sticking on the covers, so that the 
work progresses quickly. 

But magazines of large circulation have to be 
printed, folded and bound in a more expeditious man- 
ner. In the Charles Francis Press many of the maga- 
zines are completed in two operations. The main body 
of the magazine is printed on a web perfecting press, 
which is supplied by continuous rolls of paper, and pro- 
duces 96 pages at each complete rotation of the plate cyl- 
inders. This same machine, after printing 96 pages 
back to back, cuts up the sheet and folds it into signa- 
tures or groups of 16 pages, and delivers in this shape. 
These signatures of 16 pages are carried to the Juengst 
gathering and binding machines, which complete the 
work. The machine is wholly automatic; a number of 
girls are employed to supply it with piles of the 16- 
page signatures, with printed covers, and with any in- 
serts, as of colored pictures. An endless traveling 
mechanism picks up the signatures and inserts off the 

149 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

respective piles, brings them together automatically, 
without error, wire-stitches them, glues on the cover, 
and delivers the magazines in groups of five copies. 

The copies are finished except for trimming. They 
are then piled on the continuous automatic trimmer, 
which accommodates four piles of about a dozen thick 
magazines, so that 48 magazines are trimmed or cut 
open on top, bottom and front at one operation. 

A magazine of 192 pages, placed on two web presses, 
run on double shifts, can be printed at the rate of 100,- 
000 copies a day. A magazine of 48 pages, placed on 
four web presses, can be printed at the rate of 400,000 
a day. When completed they are tied in bundles and 
hustled to the delivery wagons ; these are now usually 
light auto trucks. As an issue of 100,000 magazines 
may weigh 50,000 pounds or 25 tons, it is apparent that 
the magazines of large circulation call for many truck- 
loads to handle a single issue. 

Not many of the magazines go in bulk to the pub- 
lisher. The usual process is to have the printer deliver 
in quantities to the post office, American News Co., ex- 
press companies, etc. The single copies are sometimes 
delivered in bulk to a mailing agency, but more often 
the printer contracts to do the mailing, the publisher 
supplying the addressed wrappers. 

There are three common ways of addressing the sin- 
gle wrapper copies that go to individual subscribers. 
The oldest way, which is falling into disuse, involves 
keeping all the addresses set up in linotype slugs, and 
printing from these in strips, and then passing the 
strips through what is called a mailing machine, a lit- 
tle device that cuts off each printed address from the 

150 



THE MAKING OF A MAGAZINE 

strip, and sticks it on the magazine wrapper. Another 
process requires the punching of the letters of the ad- 
dresses through a card. These perforated cards are fed 
automatically through a machine, and as each card 
comes in contact with a magazine wrapper the address 
is printed right through the perforations on to the 
wrapper. The third, and now the most common method, 
is to punch the addresses in soft metal, so that each 
address appears in raised letters on a small plate. These 
plates are arranged in series in a special machine de- 
vised for imprinting them in regular rotation on the 
magazine wrappers. 

America leads the world in magazine production, and 
at least a third of the important magazines of Amer- 
ica are produced right in New York City, and the prin- 
cipal center of magazine making in the city is the mam- 
moth Printing Crafts Building, with its fifteen acres 
of floor space, permanent telephone communication 
often being maintained between the business and edi- 
torial offices and the printery, by means of a direct 
line which does not go through a telephone exchange. 



151 



Evolution of the Trade Catalog 

A S the industries of the United States have devel- 
/\ oped, the trade catalog has become an impor- 
JL jL. tant feature in the sale and distribution of 
goods. Away back in the sixties and seventies, manu- 
facturers used to issue price-lists of their wares, for 
circulation among jobbers and retail dealers. At first 
these were mere leaflets, a single note-sheet or four- 
page circular sufficing. As factories grew, the price- 
lists grew also, and eight, sixteen and even thirty-two 
page lists became common, a few of them being em- 
bellished with wood cuts, or lithographic pictures, 
illustrating the articles offered for sale. 

When the introduction of photo-engraving brought 
down the price of pictures, they rapidly came into use 
in the price-lists, and about 1875 we began to use the 
more dignified term "catalog" in addition to price-list. 
For a time the productions commonly bore such titles 
as "Smith & Jones' Catalog and Price-List of Stoves 
and Heaters." 

The business of catalog making has grown up so 
gradually that it is impossible to set dates to mark its 
evolutionary progress. Probably there were more il- 
lustrated catalogs issued in 1876, for distribution at the 
Centennial Exposition, than in any previous year, or 
for several years thereafter, but even these were a 
small fraction of the imposing array of illustrated cata- 
logs seen nowadays at every business show. 

Some quite extensive manufacturers of 1876 did not 
know enough to get up bound booklets for their cata- 

152 



EVOLUTION OF THE TRADE CATALOG 

logs and price-lists, but had them printed on single 
large sheets of book paper, perhaps 28x42 in., and 
offered in that clumsy full-sheet form to those who 
were interested to have printed descriptions of their 
machines or goods. One of these that comes to mind 
consisted primarily of a lot of wood-cuts — the actual 
cuts on the wood, and not electrotyped duplicates — of 
perhaps a hundred different styles of machines and 
tools, with copy for about three lines of reading matter 
to go under each cut, giving name, sizes and prices. 
The printer was expected to group these cuts as con- 
veniently as he could, to make them appear harmoni- 
ously on both sides of the sheet. The idea of putting 
this incongruous mass into pages, so that the sheet 
could be folded up, did not occur to anybody, seemingly 
because the cuts were of all sizes and shapes, absolutely 
non-uniform. 

The most annoying things about this single sheet 
catalog were making the forms lift, and keeping the 
quads from rising on the press. The cuts were of all 
degrees of accuracy and inaccuracy of form. There 
had been no effort to true their surfaces, and to ac- 
commodate all their angles and slopes so as to mix with 
lines of types, as legends (or "captions" as we printers 
inaccurately call them), was "some job." When a 
form was got on the bed of the cylinder press some of 
the warped or not quite flat cuts at once began to rock, 
and the quad lines worked up with great freedom. The 
form was opened up and a lot of cardboard and paste 
inserted to hold the obstreperous lines, but even then 
it proved necessary to stop the press about every fifty 
sheets and push down a few quads. 

153 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

Printers were not slow in suggesting to manufac- 
turers that the booklet form was far better for cata- 
logs than these large sheets — "broadsides" they would 
have been termed in England, though this convenient 
word never came into general use in America. Sixteen 
or 32 pages, folded and hand-stitched through the back, 
soon became common forms for price-lists and cata- 
logs. 

After a time the better printers began to get up at- 
tractive covers, and often they would print them in two 
colors, and sometimes they would induce the manufac- 
turer to stand for the expense of a colored rule or 
border around the pages. In those days many a print- 
ers only idea of improving a job was to add another 
color of ink. 

As the catalogs grew larger, the bound book ap- 
peared, gotten up in much the same style as other 
books, but with a tendency to larger pages and more 
ornate covers. The reason for large pages in catalogs 
seems always to have been to accommodate large illus- 
trations. With no attempt at uniformity in the size 
of pictures, either wood cuts, zinc etchings or half- 
tones, it usually came to the point of finding out what 
was the largest cut that had been made for the job, 
and from this determining the size and shape of the 
pages. 

It goes without much argument that this was and is 
a very poor way of determining the desirable size of 
catalog pages, yet it has persisted, and continues even 
now, when the desire to present something on a striking 
scale induces the publication of large size catalogs, with 
pages of cumbersome dimensions, that interfere with 

154 



EVOLUTION OF THE TRADE CATALOG 

convenient handling, mailing, transportation, and final 
shelving of the books when in the hands of the users. 
This large page is easily the least excusable feature of 
many modern catalogs. An illustrated catalog of steel 
rails, produced a few years ago, contained many full- 
size outlines of cross-sections of railway rails. These 
do not make attractive pictures, and they would show 
exactly what they are even better in reductions 2x3 
ins! Yet because the largest of these rail-sections hap- 
pened to be 12 ins. high, the entire book was made 14 
ins. long, and a third of it supplied with one of these 
very simple drawings to a full page, the thing shown 
being of very slight outline, much like a capital I, with- 
out detail, and with which all purchasers of rails, in 
fact all railroad men, are so familiar that it seemed as 
needless to picture them at all as to picture a row of 
common wire nails. Yet thousands of dollars were 
spent in making these overgrown half-tones. The re- 
sult is a great 7-lb. book, that would have looked better 
if made as a 12mo, 5^x7^4 ins., of 12 ozs. weight, at 
about one-fifth of the cost. The smaller book would 
have been more serviceable, and exactly as efficient to 
advertise the product. 

The great majority of modern catalogs suffer from 
this disposition to make a few pictures abnormally 
large, apparently through a desire to exploit some par- 
ticular machine, tool or article, losing sight of the best 
size for the entire volume for the purposes it has to 
undergo. Few seem to reflect that a single large picture 
can be placed in a book as a folded insert, and that it is 
wholly unnecessary to spread all the pages to accom- 
modate one, two or more such large pictures. This 

155 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

anomalous situation seems to be brought about by the 
manufacturer first procuring large photographs, and 
then the engraver making a large plate, perhaps for 
some preliminary purpose ahead of catalog making. 
The engraver, being paid by the square inch, will nat- 
urally make as large plates as the customer will stand 
for, and encourages instead of discourages large dimen- 
sions. By the time a lot of these plates get around to 
the printer for making a catalog, they come to be ac- 
cepted without question, and having to be got in, they 
determine the page-size away beyond convenient book 
proportions. 

In the judgment of many, it is none of the printer's 
business to interpose and show the .customer that this 
unnatural swelling of pages adds greatly to the cost 
of production. He is there to make catalogs, and the 
larger they are the more money he gets for them, so he 
seldom advises reduction of size. 

The vast line of ornamental colored cover papers 
now offered by the paper-makers were developed in the 
latter part of the nineteenth century mainly for use as 
catalog and booklet covers, and many styles of ornate 
binding and tying originated in the same way. The 
manufacturing concerns that brought out the large 
catalogs have always had money to spend, and printers 
were not slow in urging upon them expensive illustra- 
tions, paper and binding, as being better adapted to 
help the sale of the goods. In this way the high-priced 
catalog has evolved, and since about 1890 many im- 
portant manufacturers have issued annually or bi- 
ennially very large and beautifully printed books, 
made with entire disregard of expense, single editions, 

156 



EVOLUTION OF THE TRADE CATALOG 

often costing from $25,000 to $100,000, and a few run- 
ning into even larger figures. 

The great cost of these modern book catalogs led 
manufacturers to make use of supplemental booklets, 
frequently with pages to match those of the large cata- 
log. These booklets they issued at convenient inter- 
vals, as they had more goods to show, or as old edi- 
tions ran out, or prices changed. They were useful in 
forwarding to prospective customers interested in only 
a small portion of the articles made by the house. These 
partial catalog booklets are often numbered, as List 
1, 2, 3, etc., or Catalog A, B, C, etc., and prove to be 
most convenient, now having an established place in 
many lines of trade. 

Of course the having two kinds of catalogs is a nuis- 
ance, and the retailer often has to consult his large book 
catalog, and then a series of the small booklet cata- 
logs to find a description of a particular odd thing 
wanted. 

To meet this condition the loose-leaf catalog was de- 
signed. The pages of these are separate and remov- 
able, and the manufacturer has only to print additions 
as his goods increase, and mail them to the dealers and 
buyers in individual pages, and they are supposed to 
insert these in their own copies of the catalogs. This 
is admirable in theory, but in practice the great ma- 
jority of dealers and buyers in possession of loose-leaf 
catalogs, have clerks who fail to see the necessity of 
bothering to open up the catalogs and insert the new 
sheets, the result being that in many instances the ex- 
tra sheets are simply placed on a shelf alongside the 
catalog, where they can be referred to if wanted, pro- 

157 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

vided they do not fall down, get dirty and be swept out 
before they happen to be wanted. 

Many of the loose-leaf books also have the disad- 
vantage of being extremely heavy and clumsy. The 
pages are made an inch wider than otherwise required, 
and the fastenings with iron bolts are both heavy and 
unsightly. Being made with large pages, some of them 
actually weigh ten pounds, and are as difficult to handle 
as a dictionary. 

The decorated booklet proved so popular that it has 
extended into use for a variety of commercial purposes, 
much broader than the term catalog indicates. The 
term booklet includes all those advertising productions 
between a mere folder or pamphlet and a bound book, 
and is produced in all sorts of shapes and colors, but 
most usually with a cover of heavy colored paper or 
cardboard, bearing a design embossed or printed in 
colors. The interior is apt to be of coated or hand- 
made (or imitation hand-made) paper, often with real 
pictures — works of art — beautifully laid out and 
printed in colors and tints. 

There has arisen a sort of competition in the produc- 
tion of these beautiful creations of the printers' art, 
leading various manufacturers to try to outdo competi- 
tors in ornamental catalogs, in the belief that the goods 
would often be judged by the character of the printing. 
Probably this is true, especially in a new industry, 
such as was automobile manufacturing during the first 
fifteen years of this century. But all sorts of goods 
tend to become standardized, and there are now fa- 
miliar classes of town cars, city cars, runabouts, limou- 
sines, cabs, trucks, etc., known as set types, and the 

158 



EVOLUTION OF THE TRADE CATALOG 

necessity for showing them in gorgeous colored print 
is reduced, the tendency being back toward utilitarian 
standardized catalogs for describing them. 

A considerable number of well-known manufacturers 
and large jobbers no longer make attempts to outclass 
other catalogs as ornate specimens of printing. Their 
price-lists are designed for use not for show, just cata- 
logs of the goods, properly classified, with simple pic- 
tures, sufficient to identify the articles, or show desired 
points of excellence. They are condensed to conveni- 
ent size, being for service not for display. These may, 
and often do, have an attractive cover, to lend dignity 
and quality to the publication, but the interior is pro- 
duced with reference to space-saving and reasonable 
economy of production. By thus keeping down the cost 
of individual copies, it is possible to send out a larger 
number, with a probable increase in the sale of the 
goods. 

The "Publishers' Trade List Annual" is a combina- 
tion catalog of the book publishers, designed to save 
publishers much cost in circulating, as well as to in- 
sure their catalogs being kept. Each American book 
publisher is asked to supply some 1,800 copies of his 
annual catalog, printed on a special size of uniform 
paper. These are sent to one binder, and made into a 
large annual volume, often ten inches thick, and sold 
at a moderate price to the book jobbers and large book- 
stores. 

Combination hardware and jewelry catalogs have 
been made on a similar principle, showing a lot of goods 
which retailers do not pretend to carry, but which can 
be shown by catalog to their customers, and ordered as 

159 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

wanted. A Western concern used to issue great num- 
bers of a sash, door and blind catalog, with standard 
prices, subject to discount. These were sold by the 
printer with the imprint of any house that cared to buy 
them, each house adjusting its prices by making dis- 
counts from the printed figures. 

When the department store business became popular, 
the larger concerns found it possible to add to their 
country sales by issuing printed catalogs of their stand- 
ard goods, and mailing these to householders in the 
territory tributary to their home city. This did not 
prove profitable in all instances, but many of the lead- 
ing department stores continue to print annual catalogs 
in order to produce business by mail. 

During recent years the mail order business has been 
tremendously developed by Montgomery Ward & Co., 
Sears, Roebuck & Co., the National Cloak & Suit Co., 
and others. Each of these concerns prints large cata- 
logs, very cheaply produced as to pictures, paper and 
printing, but admirably compact and well adapted to 
free circulation. These great catalogs go out by the 
hundreds of thousands — sometimes by the millions — 
to all enquirers, mostly householders resident at a dis- 
tance from large stores. An enormous number of people 
seem to use these in determining their purchases of 
wearing apparel, household goods and common necessi- 
ties. These mail order catalogs are of interest to the 
printer as furnishing excellent examples of ingenuity 
displayed in crowding a large amount of pictorial and 
tabular matter into small space. They are splendid 
examples of standardizing, and making the books serve 
their purpose as salesmen. 

160 



EVOLUTION OF THE TRADE CATALOG 

But the great run of catalogs remain unstandardized. 
The retail shoe man will have a dozen catalogs all of 
different sizes, which he cannot conveniently put to- 
gether for reference; it is the same with the haber- 
dasher, the clothier, the druggist, the grocer, the hard- 
ware merchant, and so on down the list of retail busi- 
nesses. Each trade receives its quota of catalogs of 
every size, shape and grade conceivable, with no sug- 
gestion of harmony or system. A few large manufac- 
turers have recognized this condition, and standardized 
their own catalogs, so that they now appear as a series 
of books that can be placed in a row on a shelf, or in a 
cardboard case, for convenient and ready reference. 
Other manufacturers, whose trade is large enough to 
require the regular publication of several catalogs, will 
issue them in three or four sizes, apparently chosen 
haphazard, without reason other than the convenience 
of the moment, to fit some particular picture or tables 
of figures, or because some printer arbitrarily chose 
that size. 

It is apparent the time has come when there should 
be a general standardizing of trade catalogs, just as 
there has been of magazines. The retail dealers would 
be better served if all the catalogs that came to them 
were of one page-size. This seems too much to hope 
for in the near future, yet it is quite possible for each 
trade to come to an understanding, accepting a given 
page-size, and all using it, so that dealers may conven- 
iently pile all catalogs together, just as letter-heads are 
now of uniform size, for convenient filing together. It 
would be then practicable for dealers to keep binders 
or paper boxes for preserving the catalogs. Those man- 

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PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

ufacturers desiring- to differentiate their catalogs from 
others could accomplish it by using a striking color for 
their covers. If Jones' catalogs are always carmine, 
Smith's always blue, and Jenkins always brown, they 
are readily identified, while the fact that all are one 
page-size, and that somebody has provided a case or 
binder for containing them, renders it more likely that 
all will be preserved, and that the manufacturer will not 
be called upon so frequently to replace lost or mislaid 
copies. 

For some years it has been the custom for most 
printers to try to sell to manufacturers the most expen- 
sive grades of catalogs, urging upon them that the more 
costly the printing the more easily will the goods be 
sold. This urging to expensive printing seems to have 
been overdone. The wiser plan appears to be to ask a 
manufacturer how many thousands he desires to reach, 
and how much a copy he can afford to spend (postage 
included) to print and circulate them. This being 
known, a size and weight is determined, so that the 
postage cost can be kept within the limit. The item 
of postage is of increasing importance, as the zone 
method of charging runs up the stamp bill enormously, 
so that it often costs more for the mailing than the 
printing. The postage being settled, the remainder of 
the appropriation is the sum permissible to spend on 
the printing, and it is practicable to lay out for the cus- 
tomer a dummy of the best that can be made within the 
cost permitted. If it looks too cheap to the customer, 
it is then for him to consider whether he can increase 
his appropriation, or reduce the bulk of the book, or the 
number of copies. 

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EVOLUTION OF THE TRADE CATALOG 

In this way the printer can most certainly supply the 
manufacturer the sort of catalog that is best for him 
as a medium to sell his goods, quality or expense being 
only one of the several items that are to be considered. 
It is usually possible to keep up quality, where a hand- 
some book is desired, by reducing the page-size and 
thickness of paper to keep down the excessive costs of 
cuts, paper and mailing. By being careful of the cus- 
tomer's best interests, rather than anxious to secure a 
large order for printing, the printer increases his 
chances of securing the order, and removing other 
competition from his path. For the average manufac- 
turer will give his catalog to the printer who best under- 
stands his problems, and shows a desire to give him 
what he wants, and to keep down the charges without 
cheapening the production, enhancing rather than re- 
ducing its selling qualities. 




163 



Problems in Salesmanship 

THERE was no art of salesmanship in the print- 
ing business fifty years ago. People who wanted 
printing in those days went to the nearest print- 
ing office and ordered it. Most of the printing done 
then would now be classed as newspaper work, and 
going out and drumming it up was not thought of, be- 
cause no one knew where to go and look for a possible 
customer. The commercial printing we have today was 
non-existent in the fifties and sixties. There was a 
moderate sale of stationery, posters, tickets, etc., but 
these did not require any salesmanship ; they were sim- 
ply priced and taken in over the counter of a stationer's 
store or newspaper establishment. The most effective 
argument for securing such orders for printing in the 
old days was a promise to give a notice free in the col- 
umns of the newspaper. 

This condition brought most miscellaneous printing 
to the newspaper offices, and therefore offices restricted 
to book and job printing were few. Up to about 1875 
most printing was sold over the counter like dry goods 
and wearing apparel. But as there grew up municipali- 
ties that required more and more printing, and as a 
class of publishers developed who did not care to print, 
and as manufactories grew to requiring perhaps thou- 
sands of dollars' worth of printing annually, the drum- 
ming salesman came into existence. These earlier 
salesmen went out with great scrap books under their 
arms, containing samples of crack jobs, and their voca- 
tion was just a trifle higher than that of a peddler. 

164 



PROBLEMS IN SALESMANSHIP 

It is a question how well qualified I am to write of 
salesmanship, for I never considered myself a salesman, 
rather an inside manager. Yet, in my earlier days, I 
did what selling was necessary to keep busy a shop 
consisting of one large man and a small boy, and later 
on at times I went out and got work, though as a full 
fledged manager I hired most of the selling. Shortly 
before starting the Charles Francis Press I was urged 
to go outside, and one fine morning I sauntered out for 
a couple of hours and brought in a job that netted the 
office $7,500 a year. Thereafter it was understood in 
that house that most of my time was required outside. 

In discussing salesmanship we are apt to think and 
talk mainly of the man who goes cut and takes orders, 
but is it not true that the quality of the printing and 
the service given constitute the larger part of the sell- 
ing? Gradually, selling methods have developed, until 
today they may be divided into four types: (1) The 
direct salesman or outside solicitor. (2) Indirect sales- 
manship, accomplished by the high grade of the product 
and reputation for fair dealing — in short, Service. (3) 
Advertising, both in publications and direct, that is by 
calendars, circulars, folders, etc., through the mail. 
(4) Over-the-counter talk to people who call. 

Of these four methods, the second one, which we may 
call "Service' , is far the most efficient. The reputation 
of a house giving value and satisfying its customers is 
just as much a means of getting trade as of holding 
trade. It is not half as hard for the outside man to 
land work for the house with a reputation for service 
as it is for a concern with no reputation or a doubtful 
record. 

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PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The best selling- — the salesmanship that counts 
for the most in the long run — comes by establishing a 
reputation for honest and straight dealing ; for delivery 
in good shape and on time ; for satisfactory quality and 
a willingness to make good any errors or discrepan- 
cies, which are bound to occur in so complicated a busi- 
ness as printing. All haggling and disputing should 
be avoided. Having made a contract, it is the printer's 
business to see it through and do the work satisfac- 
torily, even when it entails a loss. Doing this gains 
reputation and sells more printing. It is also a part of 
fair dealing to give the customer any advantage in price 
that can be reasonably afforded when doing business on 
a falling market. I know a printer who bought most of 
his paper of one house for forty years because early in 
his experience he found that they voluntarily gave him 
reductions as the market fell, without having to be 
asked, thus saving him the trouble of continually 
checking up their prices and figuring with other houses. 
How few are the printers who ever think of endeavor- 
ing to gain a reputation by such liberal treatment of 
customers ! 

This giving a customer what he is entitled to when 
prices fall establishes a confidence that makes it easy 
to hold him when prices are rising. And this is a most 
important point, for probably half the trade that the 
average printer loses is due to steadily rising prices, 
which drive the customers to look elsewhere for bids, 
and afford competitors the opportunity to cut in. But 
once a customer recognizes that he does not have to 
haggle with you to get fair prices — that you will do the 
work right anyway, and be satisfied with a ten per 

166 



PROBLEMS IN SALESMANSHIP 

cent, margin, it is very difficult for any one to take him 
from you. 

Probably few think of this matter of service as a 
part of salesmanship. Yet my contention is that it is 
salesmanship of the very highest sort, and that it gets 
more trade and keeps more than any other sort of sell- 
ing. If it costs ten per cent, to get new business — and 
most of you will agree with the proposition that it does 
— is it not worth while occasionally to give back five per 
cent, to the customer to hold him, and insure his staying 
with you ? And is not the best way to do this by spend- 
ing effort, and time, and money as needed, to supply 
him with the very best service you can ? Does not this 
go a lot farther than a box of cigars at Christmas, or a 
wine supper ? This is my idea of making the customers 
the salesmen. It is not only a great deal more agreeable 
but it is the cheapest way of developing trade. 

The printer who thoroughly understands his business, 
and who has attained a reputation for service, already 
has the time of his plant half sold. A salesman must be 
backed with performance or he cannot make good. The 
very best salesman is a satisfied customer ; he not only 
brings his own work, but brings in new customers. 

The essential qualifications of a salesman I consider 
to be — 

1. Invariable courtesy under all circumstances and 
conditions. 

2. A full and complete knowledge of what he has to 
sell. 

3. Discretion as to when and how to approach a cus- 
tomer; tact and diplomacy in saying the right thing at 
the right time. 

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PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

4. Truth-telling at all times and under all circum- 
stances. The untruthful salesman always gets caught 
sooner or later. 

5. A fair recognition of the interests and rights of 
the possible customer. 

6. The ability to see the customer's problems from 
the customer's own viewpoint, and to lead him for his 
own interest to place an order. 

7. The courage, when it is apparent that an order 
would not help the customer, to frankly admit it, wish 
him well and walk out. 

8. Entire absence of the "knock-'em-down-and-cinch- 
'em" method of argument. It is a mistake to try and 
force a man to buy against his inclinations. 

9. A wise discretion in choosing customers. It does 
not pay to run after a poor class of trade, those who 
are unwilling to pay a fair price. 

10. Ability to develop and draw out the customer's 
appreciation of high-grade work. 

11. Willingness to allow the customer to do his share 
of the talking. 

12. Hearty loyalty to the house that employs him. 

13. Alertness and energy ; never failing to be on the 
job at the psychological moment when the customer is 
ready to talk business. 

In selling printing, the salesman must know his 
plant, and what it can accomplish, and he should go 
after the work that it most requires. It is a too com- 
mon error to estimate on everything that can be found. 
I have known a hustling man representing a one-thou- 
sand-dollar plant to figure on about $200,000 worth of 
printing in two weeks, seemingly obsessed with the idea 

168 



PROBLEMS IN SALESMANSHIP 

that if he could figure on enough work, he must get 
his share. Obviously it is better to concentrate on a 
few desirable customers than to dissipate energy on so 
many prospective jobs as never to get close to a single 
buyer. 

The experienced salesman, having decided to go after 
a good house, will learn all he can about the house and 
its business before approaching them. If it is an order 
for printing an encyclopedia that he desires to land, he 
will go to a public library and look up the last edition, 
and consider it from every point of view before tackling 
the publisher. He will determine whether the paper 
chosen appears the best for the purpose; whether the 
illustrations are tipped in to advantage; what is the 
best method of handling composition and corrections; 
what are the best sized forms for printing and for 
folding. He will also study competing encyclopedias 
for ideas. 

Before spending much time in studying a proposi- 
tion, he will make sure that the customer is good pay, 
and able and disposed to keep his contracts; the char- 
acter of the man who gives out the orders often calls 
for observation. Having primed himself as to all these 
things, he should take an hour when he is free from 
disturbance, and quietly lay out a plan of campaign 
for approaching the customer to the best advantage. 

The salesman who works this way is sure to make a 
good impression ; he will show that he not only under- 
stands his business, but that he understands encyclo- 
pedias. This latter point is apt to go a long way toward 
securing a contract. The buyer of printing is very apt 
to know that it pays to give the work to a house that 

169 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

displays evidence of understanding the peculiarities and 
details of his proposition. 

The selling of printing is different from almost all 
other manufactured articles. Concerns that make 
clothing, furniture, stoves, hardware and the like, are 
put to no great hardship if goods are refused and re- 
turned, but a job of printing is of no possible use to 
any other than the party contracting therefor, and if 
refused is a complete loss. The greater risks involved 
should mean a wide margin for profit, but the margins 
are so small as to afford only a very moderate commis- 
sion for salesmen. Only on small work is ten per cent, 
well maintained ; on large work this commission has to 
be shaved. Large work will bear about eight per cent, 
profit, four for the salesman and four for the house. 
This means a close margin for the salesman, but he 
makes it up in reorders, if he works for a house that 
satisfies its customers, who thus are apt to become 
permanent. 

Salesmanship through advertising may be classed as 
indirect, since advertising in this line is not expected to 
bring orders, but inquiries. Considerable care is given 
to preparing the advertising of the Charles Francis 
Press, and virtually all advertising is aimed to stimu- 
late inquiries, to help the outside salesman. See the 
chapter titled "Advertising the Printing Office." 

If it were merely a question of selling labor, prob- 
ably printing could be sold largely by the hour, like 
plumbing; but as it involves both materials and labor, 
and every job is different from every other, the custom 
of estimating on work has become almost universal. 
This condition makes the salesman largely an estima- 

170 * 



PROBLEMS IN SALESMANSHIP 

tor. If he can do no more than run out and get copies 
of things to be reprinted, and bring them to the office 
for estimate, and then run back with the figures to the 
possible customer, the salesman degenerates into an 
errand boy. There are many of this type who earn a 
doubtful living by running back and forth between the 
printers who are trying to do work for less than others 
and get a profit out of it, and customers who are trying 
to get good printing by giving it to the fellow who will 
do it for the least money. Such are bound to be always 
small salesmen. 

There exists another class of salesmen who get or- 
ders mainly by treating. They invite prospective cus- 
tomers out, and if they like liquor and a good time they 
fill them up. It is doubtful if many buyers realize how 
much they sell themselves in this way. An instance 
comes to mind of a salesman of this type, who went to 
a neighboring city to influence a large job. There were 
two men who had a voice in the order, and both were 
convivial. He took them both out every night and 
kept them loaded. At the end of the week the house 
got this telegram : "Job landed ; am near dead drunk, 
and going to sleep it off. A. Tank." 

Those who want business obtained that way are wel- 
come to it, but it seems to me very close to the dishonest 
method of direct bribery. 

The giving of commissions to buyers is a bad prac- 
tice that developed many years ago, and reached its 
height perhaps about 1895. The printing-ink end of 
the industry was credited with being the victim of this 
abnormality to a destructive extent. It was finally 
made a crime by the New York Legislature, and is sup- 

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PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

posed to be largely stamped out. There are evidences, 
however, that it still flourishes in some quarters. 

Direct bribery has a descendant in the splitting of 
commissions. The salesman will offer to split his com- 
mission with some one of influence in the house he is 
selling to, and often to the proprietor himself. This 
invites the adding of the commission to the price. A 
New York publisher who has since failed used to give 
all his engraving to one house because they took off ten 
per cent, from all bills, and was utterly oblivious to the 
fact that they charged him a cent an inch more than 
the common price. 

The selling of different kinds of goods calls for dif- 
ferent methods. Take printing ink. There is great 
indefiniteness as to price and value. One cannot judge 
accurately of the quality of ink from the looks. The 
test comes with trying it, and sometimes the value or 
lack of value is not apparent for months. I recol- 
lect once buying a "permanent' ' red that faded out in 
three months' exposure so that nothing was visible on 
the poster but the impression. That was a good while 
ago, and since then our German friends have taught 
the inkmakers a great deal, and when the war condi- 
tions cut off German dyes and inks, our manufacturers 
had to learn to produce every grade of color formerly 
imported. 

Once a barrel of ink came into my place and the ink 
man followed it into the basement and handed a $5 bill 
to — well, the man he thought was the right party. He 
proved to be right, for he brought me the $5. I wrote 
a letter and thanked the ink man for the commission, 
but told him we preferred to receive them in the office. 

172 



PROBLEMS IN SALESMANSHIP 

In 1897 I let some one else buy my inks, and they cost 
four per cent, of our total expense; in 1898 I did my 
own buying, and spent less money, though the volume 
of presswork was 60 per cent, greater. It is not fair 
to infer that extra cost of ink always represents dis- 
honesty. Sometimes a 15 cent ink will go farther and 
look better than one at 30 cents, though the latter has 
30 cent value in it, and is essential for certain work. 
Inks require to be properly adapted to the work to be 
economical. A too heavy ink may be very wasteful. 
I once ran 50,000 music covers, using up 40 pounds of 
lead white ink, on repeating the run I used only 10 
pounds of magnesia white. (See chapter titled 
"Printing Ink Problem.") 

The wise ink salesman will study these things, and 
sell the printer the best inks for his purposes, and so get 
a grip on his trade that cannot be taken away. 

There are ways and ways of selling machinery. 
Some 30 years ago I took the management of an office 
which had just bought a cylinder guaranteed to run 
1400 an hour. It would stand about 1100. I remon- 
strated with the representative of the press company, 
and told them I thought they ought to make it right 
with the printing company. He demurred. I belted 
the press up to 1400 an hour, the guaranteed speed 
which was needed to get out certain regular work, and 
the repair bill was about $40 a month. I was not care- 
ful to conceal my experience with the press, and in a 
few months every printer in the city knew about it. 
The representative of the press company made regular 
rounds of the city, but secured no more sales. One day 
it dawned upon him that they couldn't sell any more 

173 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

presses in that city until they made it right with our 
company. I told him frankly what I thought they ought 
to do for us. He said the press company never would 
stand for the expense. 

"Telegraph them and see," I suggested. He did, and 
we had a new press in the place within a fortnight, 
that would stand up under 1400 speed. The press 
company's sales in that city were resumed, and I do 
not doubt their salesmen got general instructions not 
to misrepresent the speed of their machines. 

These instances illustrate the unwisdom of deceiving 
the customer, and the best houses today strive to teach 
their salesmen that sales made by lying are not wanted, 
as they hurt more than they help. 

To return to the selling of printing: Some men sell 
printing because they are artists, and make such beau- 
tiful dummies that they catch the customer three times 
out of four. These men serve excellently a house doing 
the very highest grade of booklet and catalog work. 
Other salesmen are artists in the line of talk they put 
up, and the clever way in which they take advantage 
of all conditions to secure an order. 

Put yourself in your customer's place, as nearly as 
you can mentally, and consider what he wants. Having 
sized up what he desires, you are in a position to give 
him that exact thing for a price. Do not try to get 
him to accept what he does not want. It is possible 
to get a horse to take a good stiff drink of vinegar, 
but he won't do it twice, and he will be ever after shy 
of the man who fooled him. Why not credit a customer 
with knowing as much as a horse, and not even try to 
fool and mislead him? 

174 



PROBLEMS IN SALESMANSHIP 

If a customer wants a job made in an unnecessarily 
expensive way, it is wise and proper to call his atten- 
tion to the fact that it would be less costly in another 
way, but unwise to urge this upon him. He may have 
reasons for choosing the more expensive way, of which 
you know nothing. 

A paper salesman once sold a lot of "seconds ,, to a 
publisher as high grade stock, by making a price 
slightly below the market, ostensibly because it was a 
large lot, and delivering it in such a way that perfect 
paper was used first. The customer discounted the bill, 
as was his custom, and did not discover that a lot of 
"seconds" had been dumped on him until several 
months later. Result: a salesman got credit for dis- 
posing of a "lemon" for about $100 more than it was 
worth, and lost a prompt cash customer for all 
time. 

The big salesman — the wise salesman — gets his cus- 
tomer interested enough to do the talking instead of 
making long set speeches himself. Most proprietors 
and employers like to discuss their business with an 
intelligent and sympathetic listener. There are lots of 
good salesmen who get the bulk of their orders because 
they make themselves welcome visitors, showing an 
appreciative interest in the progress of the customer's 
business. 

Other salesmen cultivate the fads of the men they 
sell to, or 'desire to obtain closer relations with. An 
advertising man could be named who really secures 
most of his orders on the golf course. Old Ben. Frank- 
lin tells a story about getting next to a man by discov- 
ering that his fad was archeology, and studying up on 

175 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

it just to be able to draw out his man on his favorite 
topic. 

It is perfectly legitimate to obtain trade by making 
people like you, and showing an interest in the things 
that interest them. There is no law in morality or sense 
against being a good fellow, spreading sunshine where 
you go, and by warmth of sincere feeling so attracting 
to you others that they want to give you their trade. 
However, sympathetic interest in the affairs of others 
and a sincere feeling of regard are not within the gift 
of the thoroughly selfish salesman. Unless he be really 
overflowing with kindheartedness and good wishes 
toward his fellowmen, no amount of imitative effort on 
his part will serve instead. 

The buying public know a toady and a sycophant and 
distinguish him from a real friend every time. Nature 
has endowed all of us with intuitions which inform us 
who are our real friends, and who are simply catering 
to us, flattering us and indulging in useless talk solely 
for their own selfish purposes. It is therefore apparent 
that a too-selfish man cannot reach excellence as a sales- 
man, because he is bound to disgust many customers 
by his over-apparent greed. The real crackajack sales- 
man, for whom buyers hold orders, and to whom they 
like to give business, is the whole-souled, straightfor- 
ward, frank and honest salesman, who has acquired a 
real friendship for his business associates and custom- 
ers. 

You get back from people what you send out, and 
if you are oversuspicious, narrow and illiberal with 
your customers they will be the same with you. But 
you can educate those who need education — by being 

176 



PROBLEMS IN SALESMANSHIP 

fair and broad-minded with them. Stroke a dog and 
give him a bone and you have made a friend ; kick him 
and you have an enemy. An extension of this crude 
policy to methods of dealing with one's fellow beings 
opens a very plain path of conduct for the salesman. 

The only way to make your customers real friends is 
to feel a real friendship for them, to take a genuine 
interest in their affairs and their success. The simu- 
lated article of friendship only advertises you as a 
hypocrite. 

It is hard to understand why so many printers con- 
tinue to cater for the cheapest class of work, thus 
compelling them to work for the cheapest class of cus- 
tomers. I think that in all lines of business those of 
long experience find that the majority of customers who 
buy in large quantities do not want cheap goods or a 
half efficient service. They try to bear prices on gen- 
eral principles, not because they want the cheapest ar- 
ticle. It is therefore a mistake to keep shaving the 
price and taking the difference out of the quality of 
the job. 

It is part of a salesman's duty to talk up quality 
and service and to see that his house delivers the qual- 
ity he is offering and selling. Since printing is largely 
advertising, it is almost always best for the buyer to 
order a good grade of printing, and not crowd the price 
so that the product is cheapened. At the same time 
there is a super-excellence in printing, a refinement of 
art quality, that runs heavily into the money, and is not 
justified in many cases by commercial conditions. 

It is fitting that the salesman should recognize the 
grade of printing and extent of service best suited to 

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PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

his customer's wants, and try to sell him whatever his 
surroundings demand. All this means that the good 
big salesman must be a good business man. He should 
be at least the equal in intelligence of the men to whom 
he sells, else he cannot see their problems and offer 
goods likely to meet their wants. 

There have been exploited in various trade journals 
arguments and examples of the so-called forceful sales- 
man, he of gigantic personality, who steps into the 
president's office, attracts him at once, and proceeds to 
hypnotize him in the most approved fashion, literally 
forcing his proposition down his throat, clinging to 
him like a leech, and never letting go until he has a 
fat contract duly signed and delivered. Surely these 
articles are not written by salesmen, but by theorists 
of the School of Dominance by Force, who are de- 
scended from the old robber barons who held up travel- 
ers passing through their domain and took away from 
them any possession they desired. 

The so-called forceful salesman is a myth and a mis- 
take. Where he gets trade from a few weaker in- 
dividuals, he shuts himself out from the trade of the 
best class who prefer to use their own judgment in buy- 
ing, and not be dictated to. It is a crowning blunder 
to try and influence a customer against his judgment. 
Give him only honest advice, as seems agreeable, and 
leave him to decide, for he is the man who must bear the 
responsibility and stand the loss if he buys unwisely. 

Another sort of salesman who should be shunned 
is the one who steals trade. By this I refer to the adop- 
tion of unfair methods, as by corrupting buyers through 
underhand commissions, or the use of money and power 

178 



PROBLEMS IN SALESMANSHIP 

to kill off a competitor, or the stealing of a competi- 
tor's lists and addresses, or resorting to any practice 
that will not bear the light of publicity and commend 
itself to fair and honorable men. When a house de- 
mands of a salesman that he resort to or assist in any 
such practices, it is time for him to tender his resigna- 
tion. Some of these methods have been known to gain 
trade and hold it for a long time, and various trusts 
have been accused of doing these things on a large 
scale, with apparent success. But I fail to see the ad- 
vantage of winning a few dollars or even a great vol- 
ume of money by means that forfeit one's self respect, 
and make it impossible to look every man squarely in 
the eye without being ashamed of anything you have 
done. This is not real success, it is simply money-grab- 
bing. 

Enthusiasm in pushing trade is all right, and has an 
acceptable place in good salesmanship. When a sales- 
man feels that he has won the friendly regard of a cus- 
tomer, it is quite legitimate for him to try and interest 
the customer in his — the salesman's — success. I like 
to give sizable orders to the ethical hustling salesman, 
who is making a record for his house, and so do plenty 
of other merchants feel an inclination to throw all they 
legitimately can in the way of the hard, conscientious 
worker. The fellow who comes in all smiles — not the 
forced smiles, but the real signs of cheer and good will 
— and who is sincerely proud of what his house is doing 
and the volume of their sales, based on sound business 
methods, invites the buyer to give him more trade, 
rather than to hand it to a misanthrope at the same 
figure. 

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PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

It is good practice for the salesman to be also a buyer. 
If he cannot actually buy much, let him study what he 
would do in a buyer's place. Thus he may learn of 
the things that pass in a buyer's mind, and determine 
him in giving out contracts. Understanding the buyer, 
knowing what he wants, considering his responsibili- 
ties, what he can do and what he cannot do, and the 
things that influence him, are vitally essential to sales- 
manship, and cannot be studied too exhaustively. 

The profit salesman is the "real thing." The man who 
can sell $100,000 worth of printing in a year of the sort 
that will yield $10,000 profit to the house is a real sales- 
man. There are salesmen who are reported to sell 
much more than this, but if the work obtained does not 
yield the house more than two or three per cent., or 
only serves to keep the presses moving in the dull sea- 
son, it is scarcely worth while. We all take off our hats 
to the salesmen who can legitimately and honestly in- 
fluence large business contracts yielding a satisfactory 
profit to all concerned. 

The bright man going into salesmanship will con- 
sider — 

1. The character of the firm he is selling for, and 
its principles of conducting business. 

2. Whether they are looking for volume of business, 
and are satisfied to sell at cost, or realize when they are 
selling below cost. 

3. Whether the salesman is expected to get most of 
his business by undercutting, which implies poor qual- 
ity and few repeat orders. 

4. Or whether the house is the sort that insists on 
a fair price to start, tries to hold the good-will of cus- 

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PROBLEMS IN SALESMANSHIP 

tomers by fair dealing, and thus makes it easy for the 
salesman to hold the trade he gets. 

The salesman who connects with the latter sort of 
house and is loyal to its interests can always build up 
an income for himself commensurate with his ability, 
and once having established a good trade is as well 
fixed as if he were in business for himself. 

The real desideratum to be attained in salesmanship 
is the same as the motto adopted by the Associated 
Advertising Clubs of the world, "Truth in Advertis- 
ing," simply changing this to "Truth in Selling." 



181 



Taking Orders and Holding Customers 

IN the mind of every customer for printing is some- 
thing that decides him as to whom he shall give the 
work. It is the business of those who receive the 
orders to understand both the men and the work with 
which they have to deal. The best order-taker is he 
who sizes up what is going to decide the customer, and 
works to give him just that. 

The man who takes orders in the front office, or who 
responds to a telephone call to "come over and see us 
about that job," is in a different position from the so- 
liciting salesman whose problems are considered in the 
chapter on "Problems in Salesmanship." We are now 
dealing with the trade that naturally belongs to the 
office, or which comes along without being specially 
sought. 

The customer who calls up to talk about a job may 
divide his work between two or three printers, and 
have no special choice, or he may have large work at 
stated intervals, as a spring and fall catalog, on which 
several printers are invited to bid as a matter of 
regular procedure. Such customers usually appear 
anxious for the lowest figure, yet they do not give the 
work to the lowest bidder half the time, evidently 
because they want quality and service as well as price. 

It is the order-taker's duty to receive this class of 
customers, or to call on them, figure with them, show 
an interest in what they are trying to do, if possible 
make suggestions that will help the work, and generally 
to convince them that this is the place to have the 

182 



TAKING ORDERS AND HOLDING CUSTOMERS 

printing done. If previous jobs have been executed 
with entire satisfaction, he has an easy task, yet he 
must arrange to give as good printing and service as 
before, or the customer will not be held. 

Prompt attention and complete courtesy are the first 
essentials. The man who is already a customer of the 
house likes to be recognized the instant he appears in 
the place. It is unwise to let him wait; somebody 

should be on hand to smile on him and say "Mr. 

will see you in a few minutes. If you cannot wait he 
will call on you. Is there anyone else who can wait on 
you?" This sort of attention will always hold a man 
a little while, and prevent any irritation at the delay. 

The head of a large firm with an order for a $20,000 
catalog was once kept waiting fifteen minutes in the 
anteroom of a large printery, to which he intended to 
give the job, but became so disgusted that he left, going 
to his second choice, a printer in the next block, and left 
the order. It was the courtesy of the printer who was 
his second choice that brought him the order when the 
chosen printer showed this fatal neglect. 

Lack of courtesy is more often sheer carelessness — 
as in the above instance — than from real ill breeding. 
Real courtesy springs from kindness of heart — thought- 
fulness for others. See that the man who takes your 
orders has these qualities, and you need never fear 
losing business from neglect of courtesy on his part. 
But the careless, self-centered or preoccupied man is 
almost sure to lose some trade through thoughtless 
neglect of ordinary attention and courtesy. 

Judgment should be exercised in calling on regular 
customers. Some like it ; others are liable to be bored. 

183 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

Probably it is wise to call on all good customers once 
a month; in some instances twice a week may not be 
too often. The thing to be borne in mind is that if you 
do not keep following up your people, somebody else 
is liable to get in on their work. It is important to 
know that you keep on satisfying your customers, and 
to that end they should often be asked the question 
point blank. There are quiet people who never kick 
or growl, but who if dissatisfied simply go elsewhere. 
Such people can be retained by making it a business to 
know regularly that each customer is satisfied, or if not, 
find out just the difficulty and make it right. Too many 
printers are unwilling to compensate the customer for 
their own errors. The printer should pay for his mis- 
takes and blunders, for his own good as well as for his 
trade reputation. It is the surest way to cure yourself 
and your co-workers of making errors. 

Do not leave room for misunderstandings in the 
taking of orders; it is here that many a printer falls 
down. He thinks he has got all the points in his head, 
or he thinks they will be remembered, or that if any- 
thing is wrong it will be caught when the proof comes 
back ; and so he takes chances and some of these 
chances develop into costly blunders that somebody has 
got to pay for. It is not of much use to prove to a cus- 
tomer that he himself is at fault, if he has got so 
irritated that he leaves you anyway, and complains to 
others about your careless methods. The thing is to 
arrange conditions so that misunderstandings will not 
occur. 

The new solicitor, who is not yet harmonized to his 
surroundings, is especially apt to leave openings for 

184 



TAKING ORDERS AND HOLDING CUSTOMERS 

error. The proper guard against this is to reduce all 
details to writing. The vacation season is prolific of 
misunderstanding, if every detail of a job has not been 
provided for. If Mr. Blank depends on his memory, 
and the point in question comes up while he is taking 
his two weeks at the seashore, an error and an irritated 
customer is the natural result. 

When an order is taken, all details should be made 
clear. In large work this is settled by means of a care- 
fully prepared estimate or contract ; but in small work 
it is best to use a form of acceptance blank, which is 
both a courteous acknowledgment of the order, and also 
serves to set forth the details so that no chance of mis- 
understanding can readily arise. The form on a fol- 
lowing page is used by the Charles Francis Press. 

This blank should be used for acknowledging all 
orders, without exception, and will be found especially 
serviceable when a customer telephones some change 
modifying the number of copies of an edition. It is so 
easy to get it 2,500 when 3,500 is intended, and it is im- 
possible later to know whether the error occurred at 
one end of the phone or the other, unless a memoran- 
dum such as shown here is sent to clinch and verify the 
order. This is one of the little things which go to per- 
fect the service of the printing office, and keep trade. 

Where customers write in letters altering instruc- 
tions to the Charles Francis Press it is our custom to 
send carbon copies of the letter to each of the depart- 
ments, that no possible misconstruction may arise. 

It is a mistake to go the limit in praising your own 
work, or criticizing that of others. Seldom is any job 
perfect. It is easy to show a customer shortcomings in 

185 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

some large job, but hard to do it better than the other 
fellow. Be modest as well as confident ; promise to do 
your best, but do not promise perfection. Then there 
is less likelihood of later "comebacks." 

If a customer will not be satisfied, after exhaustive 
efforts to please, let him go. Life is too short to waste 
in working for those who growl and grumble perpetu- 
ally. But if a customer's continual fault-finding arises 
from his ignorance, it is well to train him. I can tell 
a true story here, because it happened long ago. We 
printed the first number of a new publication, and did 
a very creditable job. A few days afterward the cus- 
tomer came in with a copy in which he had marked all 
the typographical errors that he and his editors could 
find. Most of them came from following copy, and his 
editors had had the proofs and never marked them. We 
showed him that we were at fault in about one-tenth 
of the instances and his own people and copy at fault 
in the remainder; but this did not particularly assuage 
his wrath. He said we should correct the mistakes in 
copy and not make any ourselves. 

Next month he found fault with the appearance of a 
few half-tone cuts that he turned in at the last minute 
and which were not etched deep enough. We tried to 
explain that we were not responsible for such condi- 
tions, but he accepted no excuses. The following issue 
it was the same thing, and again on the fourth. Al- 
though extreme pains were taken to make a first-class 
job, and please and satisfy, he invariably appeared in 
the office the day after issue, and exploded with com- 
plaints. He could not understand why perfection was 
impossible on a rush job. He was good pay, and we 

186 



Phone Greeley 3210 

THE CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS 

A MODERN PRINTERY 

Printing Crafts Building 
34th Street and Eighth Avenue, New York 



Date. 



Dear Sir: 

Please accept our thanks for your valued order of 

It shall have our careful and prompt attention. 

The following memoranda express our full understanding of the order as entered 
on our books. If any statement is incorrect or misleading, kindly notify us at once. 

Name 



Address 



Work ordered is 



No. copies Cover 

Type Ink 



Illustrations Proof wanted 



Paper To be completed 

Binding 



Remarks : 



We trust that we shall be able to serve you so satisfactorily as to win your 
further patronage. 

Very truly, 



(Signed). 



TAKING ORDERS AND HOLDING CUSTOMERS 

needed the work, but I made up my mind it was neces- 
sary to let him go before he left us. So I said to him, 
as nearly as I can recall : 

"Mr. Smith, we have done our very best to please 
you. It is impossible to issue a publication in a rush 
and do everything as we would if not limited by time 
and cost. If you will examine the periodicals on the 
newsstands you will find more errors and shortcomings 
than have been in any issue of yours. We need your 
work ; we want it ; but we can't afford to have you stay 
in your present frame of mind. You need to go and 
have your experience, and I suggest that you take it 

to whom you say criticizes this and this, 

and if he does not suit, then try another. After you 
have tried several, and had a general experience, we 
want you back. But I must refuse to get out another 
number while you look at things as you now do." 

He took it pleasantly enough, and went to the small 
printer who had been helping him pick it to pieces in 
order to get the job. The next issue was almost pitiful. 
The small printer had to depend on outside composition 
and outside binding; both were late and generally bad. 
The cylinder work was done on two presses, and did 
not match in color. Mr. Smith had enough of this man 
with the one issue, and then took it to a nearby shop 
which was under clever management. He told me of 
this, and pressed me for my opinion as to what he 
might expect there. So I said, "The first issue from 
that shop will be fine, but look out for him a little later." 
This proved to be exactly the case; in four months he 
tired of this printer, and his bills for corrections, and 
took his publication to a very large shop, from which 

187 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

were issued a number of well-known publications. This 
printer, No. 4, was full of work at the time, and Mr. 
Smith suggested that to hurry the first issue a form or 
two might be sent to Mr. Francis. No. 4 acted on this, 
and we printed one sheet. This sheet looked so much 
better than the others, that when they came together in 
the bound magazine the customer kicked, and told No. 
4 his work was "punk !" No. 4 called us on the phone 
and frankly told us about it, saying, "I didn't know you 
could do such fine presswork as that; I guess I ought 
not to have sent you the sheet." 

After one more issue, we called on the customer, 
whom we have been calling Mr. Smith, and asked how 
he was getting on with his various printers. "We 
haven't had but one issue as good as you gave us," he 
frankly admitted. 

"Then we would be glad to have you back/' I sug- 
gested. And back he came, after which we never had 
any serious differences. 

The printer who follows the right policy, of living 
up to his agreements, and making up to the customer 
for all errors, finds it necessary also to insist that cus- 
tomers live up to their agreements. A case in point 
occurred in 1914 : We purchased a large lot of paper 
for a customer's catalog ; at the last moment he reduced 
the order for copies materially, leaving several hundred 
dollars' worth of paper on our hands. We billed it to 
him, and he kicked. We insisted, and he paid, though 
he evidently was sore about it, and thought we could 
readily have taken it off his hands. Then the war 
came on, and paper doubled in price, and for the next 
issue of .the catalog this customer had this paper ready, 

188 



TAKING ORDERS AND HOLDING CUSTOMERS 

bought at antebellum prices, leaving him several hun- 
dred dollars to the good. He was sore no more, but 
acknowledged the justice of our method. 

In all cases of disputes with customers it should be 
remembered that the object sought is not to talk him 
down, but to placate and satisfy him. There are times 
when it is well to be willing to relinquish what you 
regard as your rights to preserve harmony. Most men 
are kindly disposed, and can be disarmed by such talk 
as this : "Do not let our difference grow into a rupture ; 
we will meet you more than half way. Tell us exactly 
what you think we should do, and if it is reasonably 
possible we will do it. We are here to please our cus- 
tomers. We want your work ; we like you and want you 
to like us." 

Nine men out of ten will come back at you with an 
easier proposition than you expected. But if you try to 
"hog" it, you make a hog of the customer, who has the 
upper hand of you in that he can always quit, and if he 
quits in a dissatisfied frame of mind he will ever after 
be a poor advertisement for your business. 

Beware of promises; when lightly made they come 
back as serious encumbrances. The most successful 
printers are slow to promise, but faithful in perform- 
ance. Taken as a whole, the printing trade has a poor 
reputation in the matter of keeping promises. It is 
hard to understand why printers will regularly stultify 
themselves by promising things at whatever date they 
seem wanted, and then promptly forgetting all about it. 
Yet observation compels the opinion that a majority 
of printers do not keep their promises of delivery half 
the time. 

189 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

This slackness is the opportunity of the efficient 
printer, who finds it all the easier to build up a reputa- 
tion for doing work on time and keeping his promises. 
In the chapter "Thoughts from Successful Printers," a 
prominent printer of New England is quoted, giving as 
one reason for his success that it was always held that 
promises were made to be kept, regardless of expense. 

In taking orders, it is well to have an understanding 
with the customer as to following copy. In large work, 
the copy is apt to be good, the customer having compe- 
tent editors who put it in shape; but in smaller jobs 
and work done for those who only occasionally have a 
large job, the copy is often full of errors and very 
inadequate. Many printers set up the work much as it 
comes in, on the principle that they are not responsible 
for other people's blunders. When the work reaches 
the proofroom it is criticized, and the customer asked 
if he wants to let this and that go as it is. He says 
make it right, and the corrections are put on the proofs 
that should have been put in the copy, resulting in a 
long bill of charges for "author's alterations." 

This is hardly fair to the customer. If copy is faulty, 
it is best to give it to the proofreader, let him revise 
and correct a few pages, and forward these to the cus- 
tomer with a note to the effect that the copy shows an 
average of so many errors to a page; that it will cost 
so much for a reader to go over the copy and make 
them right now; that if the matter is put in linotype 
as it is, and these corrections made later it will cost 
four or five times as much. This course will usually 
bring an order to make the required corrections on the 
copy at the author's expense, and it often brings also 

190 



TAKING ORDERS AND HOLDING CUSTOMERS 

the appreciative thanks of the customer, who sees that 
you have his interest at heart. 

There are dishonest printers who purposely put poor 
copy through the office, in the expectation that it will 
call for a lot of time charges, which can be padded to 
their profit. This, of course, is robbery, but unfor- 
tunately it is very difficult to prove. 

Often it is essential to have an advance understand- 
ing with the customer as to style and punctuation; 
otherwise serious differences may arise. A case comes 
to mind of a customer whose copy was neatly type- 
written with a great many words all in capital letters. 
Naturally the linotyper followed the style. The proof 
came back with the remark that "any printer ought to 
know enough to put these in italic upper and lower and 
not in screaming capitals!" He never got over being 
obliged to pay for changing them. A little talk at the 
outset often will save such disputes and irritation. 

Another instance was of a customer who ordered 
about 60 cuts vignetted. When they were all made, at 
a cost of about $150, and he saw the proofs in which 
the margins faded away, he said they were not as 
ordered, and would have to be all done over again. He 
had an idea that "vignetted" meant to draw fancy bor- 
ders around, and arrange and group artistically. When 
the error was brought home to him as his own, he paid 
the bill, but was so sore he withdrew the order, and 
went elsewhere. 

Almost numberless experiences of this sort show the 
need of discussing the copy and conditions of every 
large job with the customer, so that such misunder- 
standings will be cleared up before the work is done, 

191 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

and not result in wasting the customer's money. It is 
not fair to expect all customers to know the terms and 
conditions surrounding the printing trade. The order- 
taker who can scent in advance points of possible 
mix-up is of great value in a printery in anticipating 
and preventing costly misunderstandings. 

Mr. John A. Wilkens, who for many years has pre- 
sided in the outer office at the Charles Francis Press, 
and who discusses most of the details of work with cus- 
tomers, has evolved some rules which he puts into prac- 
tice. He is careful to make it clear to a new customer 
just what a quoted price includes, and on what he may 
expect time charges. Detention of the press is a charge 
that always looks unfair to a man who has not bought 
much printing. Another rule is to discover whether 
the customer cares for suggestions, and to assist him 
with the experience available in the office. It is usual 
also to consider what grade of printing is best adapted 
to the customer's wants. While price is an important 
element, low price means low quality, and while some 
jobs require to be as elegant and expensive as possible, 
the vast majority are desired of a grade between the 
highest and the lowest. It is a real art to find out just 
what grade is best for this or that purpose, and then 
to arrange the details to give the best appearance for 
the money. 

It is a mistake to represent to customers that they 
are always to have the very highest grade of printing. 
The highest excellence in these days of art printing 
often means a cost two or three times the prevailing 
prices for a commercial job, and it is folly to claim that 
the latter equals the artistic product. As in all other 

192 



TAKING ORDERS AND HOLDING CUSTOMERS 

trades, imitations of the best exist in all departments 
of printing. We buy imitation hand-made papers, 
single-etched cuts, slap through the make-ready, omit 
slip-sheeting, and do or omit doing scores of other 
things to keep down the cost, and we ought to let the 
buyers know it. Those who are educated to printing 
do know it, and are not deceived. There is no occasion 
for deceiving anybody. 

It is the order-taker's duty to find out just what a 
prospective customer needs and wants, and give it to 
him, rather than to be a mere price-maker, or a rubber 
stamp for passing along what the customer says. By 
showing a full understanding and appreciation of the 
buyer's desires and aims at the outset, the first favor- 
able impression is made, and the customer comes to 
realize that his work will be handled intelligently. If 
he gets a lower price elsewhere he is still likely to come 
back to the man who has shown that he knows how to 
do the job right. 

Because work is slack, or a particular job is large, is 
no good reason for taking on a contract that your shop 
is not well adapted to. Learn to let such things go by. 
It pays much better to cling to a line of work, and 
specialize. For a full exposition of this idea see the 
chapter on "Service, Efficiency and Specialization." 



193 



Advertising the Printing Office 

A LL printers believe in advertising, because they 
/\ see that a very large part of printed pub- 
JL jL licity is advertising, and they handle so much 
of it that they readily recognize who is making 
money out of advertising and who fails to get re- 
sults. They also discover that there are almost limit- 
less ways and methods of advertising, and that the most 
common kind, the displayed space in a newspaper, is 
valuable only to those who have things which sell to 
nearly all readers — for food, clothing, and articles that 
everybody buys ; while the advertising of a commodity 
like printing, which is purchased in quantity by less 
than one per cent, of the population, must be addressed 
to the class who purchase the sort of printing one has 
to sell, and that money is wasted by sending advertising 
to people whose only expenditure is perhaps a dozen 
calling cards in five years and a wedding announcement 
once in a lifetime. 

In each community the largest buyers of printing are 
well known, for they are the most prosperous business 
firms of the locality ; so it becomes a question of attract- 
ing the favorable attention of a few. This condition 
at first suggests that straight solicitation is the best 
method of securing printing. This phase of selling is 
fully treated in the chapter on "Problems in Sales- 
manship." We know that advertising does help the 
printer, and that some printers do a great deal and 
prosper, and therefore, disregarding solicitation for 
the present, let us consider the various forms of adver- 
tising that a printer can use. 

194 



ADVERTISING THE PRINTING OFFICE 

The ornate circular, leaflet, booklet or blotter — itself 
a sample of fine printing — sent out regularly, as once 
a month, to a list of vicinity firms whose business is 
desired has been demonstrated an excellent method 
for the stationer-printer, who handles a general class 
of small work. Probably this system cannot be im- 
proved upon for the average small platen-press print- 
ing office. 

The excellence of the printing thus sent out, the ap- 
propriateness of the wording, and the general good 
sense with which it is followed up, will have much to 
do with the success of such a campaign; that the sys- 
tem is fundamentally sound cannot be denied, having 
been tried again and again, and most thoroughly ex- 
ploited in the trade papers. The printer who needs this 
sort of advertising will find ideas in plenty to assist him 
by searching the files of the Inland Printer and Ameri- 
can Printer, and other trade journals. 

For larger printing houses doing long runs of work 
for prominent concerns, the annual calendar has been 
found useful, as a daily reminder of the house that 
handles large jobs promptly and efficiently. These ordi- 
nary publicity methods are too well known to require 
more than passing mention. Why some printers are 
so unobserving as to issue cheaply printed calendars 
with moderate-sized figures I never could comprehend, 
as most of these go into the waste-basket. What the 
average printer seeks in advertising is some system of 
publicity that has not been thoroughly worked, and 
which he can use or adapt to his own individual wants. 

If in attempting to meet this demand I seem to be 
writing almost wholly of my own work and experience, 

195 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

let the reader understand that it is not from a wish to 
exploit my personality, but simply because this chapter 
is necessarily a record of individual experiences in ad- 
vertising. It has been thought well to reproduce here 
a series of advertisements run by the Charles Francis 
Press in Printers' Ink. This publication, being well 
read by thousands of large advertisers who are exten- 
sive users of printing, and by all advertising agencies, 
special representatives, and ad-men, affords an unusual 
opportunity for the printer to gain the attention of 
substantial houses. 

My first decision in regard to Printers' Ink adver- 
tising was that we must take more space than any 
other printer in the publication, or that at least we 
must not allow any other good printing house to over- 
shadow our space. Therefore the full page ad was 
chosen. The next decision was that each page ad 
should emphasize one idea, a single concept, that could 
be quickly grasped, and therefore was likely to be read 
by the busy advertiser. 

When it came to preparing copy for the advertise- 
ments, we first paid an advertising agency to write us 
twenty announcements. Not all of these were striking, 
and soon it became apparent that I must write almost 
all of them myself. Somehow the experts never caught 
on to just what would be effective for us, and while I 
never posed as an ad-writer, yet it appeared that for 
our own business I was better equipped to say effective 
things than was any one we could hire. After vain 
search among other advertising for models, we always 
fell back on the theories which had made the plant 
successful. 

196 



If you only knew 

all the advantages you could 

enjoy by the use 

of the 

CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS 
Half- Million Dollar Modern Plant, 
for your printing and pamphlet binding, 
you would certainly get in touch with us 
when in need of a printer. 

Our facilities and competency in caring 
for copy and lay-outs intelligently; for 
suggestions in write-ups, illustrating and 
designing the manifold variety of com- 
mercial literature is par excellence. 

This SERVICE is at your command. 

Give us a phone call, (3210 Greeley) pre- 
paratory to any work you may have and 
let us talk it over with you. You'll find 
it good business tactics. 

CHARLES 
FRANCIS 
PRESS 

PRINTING CRAFTS BUILDING 
■35 » TI L.h's££ New York Cry 



o^a. 




We are of proper age. seasoned, ambiti 

Our selected battle line of defense and offer 



P rinting ^ emce 

at easy gait or double-quick time. 

Our company is fully recruited with the most 
effective "big guns" (and our artillery staff know 
how to handle them) that are hammering out. 
day and night, printing of the highest grade 
If you are preparing for a drive, with your eye 
on some objective, and have decided to utilize 
COLOR PRINTING 
CATALOGS or PUBLICATIONS 
to make the assault— report at once to our strate- 
gic and efficiency board for conference and 
co-ordination, by phone, dispatch or messenger 

Charles Francis Press 

PRINTING CRAFTS BLDC NEW YORK 
Phone 3210 Greeley fit™,™™™. 



-, 



Convincing ^roof 



can be shown you that the 

Charles Francis 
— =Press— = 

in the Printing Crafts Building, 461 
to 479 Eighth Avenue, New York City 
with its half-million dollar printing 
plant of the latest and most modem 
machinery and its organization of 
Master Printers, is the one place to 
get just what you are looking for in 
SERVICE and QUALITY. 

ART WORK PERIODICALS 

PROCESS COLOR CATALOGS 
HOUSE ORGANS BOOKLETS 
PUBLICATIONS FOLDERS 

ADVERTISING COMPOSITION 
and COMMERCIAL PRINTING 



Telephone 3210 Creel 




Come and See Us 

if you're dissatisfied with your printing 



WE can give you a list of 
satisfied customers who will 
be pleased to tell you about 
the SERVICE we render; the 
QUALITY of our production 
and the unusual facilities for 
prompt deliveries that com- 
prise association with the 



Charles Francis Press 

(half million dollar plant) 



domiciled in that modern 
Printing Crafts Building, 

461 10 487 Eighth Ave.. New York City 
occupying over 54,000 square 

feet of space filled with the 
latest improved equipment for 
COLOR PRINTING, 

CATALOGS and 
PUBLICATIONS. 

TELEPHONE 3210 GREELEY 



By all means correct the situation — 

Come and See Us 




J.HE ; 
substant 
uous bu 



Your Service 

is no small part of the sat- 
isfaction we receive in our 
dealings with you." 



written to us by a very 
after two years' contin- 
itions. In another para- 



Quite the handsomest i 
that has come under 
observation. 



OUR superb plant is now in full swing 
-working DAY and NIGHT shifts 
■ — creating and producing printing 
for commercial and general purposes of 
a distinctive and impressive character, mak- 
ing deliveries in record time. 

We want some of your trade and know 
you will be agreeably surprised at the 
SERVICE rendered and perfectly satisfied 
with the QUALITY of the finished work. 

Come, let us reasor together, or arrange an 
by phone (3210 Greeley) or write. 



CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS 

PRINTING CRAFTS BUILDING 
NEW YORK CITY 

(Eishlt. Avc.-3ird to 34lli Strecti) 



PRINTING 
SERVICE 



YOUR ADVERTISING MATTER- 
Catalog. Booklet.etc.-if thoughtfully edited; 
copy, arranged typographically with style and 
balance; paper, proper quality, -weight and color; 
printing, sharp, clean and in register; hinding, 
carefully folded and trimmed — then you should 
have a finished product that will prove effective. 

WE are in the field to render this kind of 
SERVICE and to give work of QUALITY to 
those desirous of utilizing our half-million dollar 
printing plant of the latest and moat modern 
machinery and an organization of Master Printers. 

Treat us to a visit. We will gladly show you 
around the whole plant — at the same time you 
can look our staff over. It's the hest method to 
judge, practically, the merits of our proposition. 



Charles Francis Press 

Printing Craft, Building, Ntw York City 

"** A '"" PW 3210 GreeUy »" " "* S " 



%ESULTS 

Are what you want 
That is what counts most in Direct Advertisi 



POINTING THAT PULLS require, not only 
technical knowledge of the line to be exploited, but 
exceptional artistic and constructive ability behind it to 
second your efforts. By studious endeavor and through 
experience attained by business connections in the many 
years of devotion to commercial, color, advertising and 
other printed matter, that is better than the ordinary, 
we are qualified to produce Direct Advertising litera- 
ture that will make you gratifying business returns. 



CHOTCE-That starts 
as soon as you talk busi- 
ness — such as size, margin, 
arrangement of copy, style 
of type to use, selection of 
display type, proper com- 
bination of paper, ink and 
bindingtosecure harmony, 
etc. — and ends only on re- 
ceipt of delivery on time. 



QUALITY-This tech- 
nical and practical 
knowledge, together with 
the zealous application of 
same by craftsmen who 
are ever on their toes to 
excel, furnishes style and 
class that stamp distinction 
on your advertising, there- 
by commanding attention. 



WE want some of your printing trade. If you will 
confer "with us on the wants of your customers, and 
wish- they -were customers, we will elucidate a profit- 
sharing proposition. Phone, call or write 



CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS 

PRINTING CRAFTS BUILDING. NEW YORK 
TELEPHONE 3210 GREELEY 



:*:■■ 



MR. ADVERTISER 



When yon plan a campaign of advertising, 
an important feature in the consummation 
of that business-producing scheme is to have 
at hand, ready for immediate use, a supply of 

Follow-Up-Printing 

in the shape of a booklet, which should be 
written, edited and printed in such a man- 
ner and style as to impress the recipient 
so favorably that it will clinch an order. 

If you are not getting that kind of material 
in your Follow - Up literature — booklets, 
catalogues, etc. — you are no: realizing the 
gross percentage due on your expenditure. 

It requires practical knowledge, thought, 
care and artistic skill to create and produce 
successful trade winners. We possess these 
qualifications and if you write, phone or 
call, will demonstrate what we can do. 

CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS 



Printing and Binding 

OUT ON TIME AND "RIGHT" 



TELEPHONE 3210 CREELEY 



Ben Franklin 

nd His Big Brother Bill 



Started the ball railing in New York 
and its vicinity in the line of 
Printing and Binding 

Wr. was an expert in li is business, but if lie 
were living today he would be astounded to see 
that where he looked over virgin fields and brows- 
ing cattle there has arisen next to the magnificent 
Pennsylvania Depot and the U. S. Postoffice. a 
building 24 stories high, with floor space equal 
to fifteen acres, and built in less than one year's 
time for the special requirements of the printing 
fraternity. The Charles Francis Press occupies 
the largest space of any one printing concern in 
this mammoth structure, and with an almost 

ENTIRELY NEW PLANT 

OK MACHINERY IS DOING WONDERS IN THE WAY OK 

service: and quality 

on Magazines, Catalogues, Brochures and High- 
class Color Printing. 

You are invited to look us over at 

PRINTING CRAFTS BUILDING 

Cir.HTH AVENl'F. T j"i "V f''"r*t"i "".'t it nkw YORK CITY 

and give us your opinion of the change after 
twenty-two years in Thirteenth Street. 

Charles Francis Press 

Ttltphont 3210 Grcilty 



proclamation 

TO THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD: 

W\)lXWti by the Constitutional Authority of the 
State of New York and the power 'vested in the 
CHARLES FRANCIS PRESS through its incorpora- 
Hon under the State Laws 

"Be ft tyreby CnaCtCO,- that from now and hence- 
forward all those desiring ^PRINTING and its allied 
products shall be solicited to give the same to the before- 
mentioned company, upon pain of displeasure, poor 
service and execution by others. Therefore, 

TBe it EOSOlbCD that we will henceforth and forever, 
lake advantage of the wonderful facilities and reputation 
for high<lass work and excellent service that is now the 
business possession of the Charles Francis Press, whose 
manufacturing establishment is located at the Printing 
Crafts Building, 461 Eighth Avenue, New York City. 

911 officers of the above organization have been especially 
instructed to give their prompt and efficient attention to 
the enforcement of the provisions of this document. 

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, we have hereunto 
set our hands and caused the seal of the 
company to be hereto annexed this ffth day 
of July, i 9 i 7 . 

Done at the City, County and State of New York, 
LtMZ,<*z/Zf+e 







tfM*^^&~^8*^- 



They Are 

All good 

Fellows 



WE have nothin 



>g 
to say that would 
be detrimental 
to our brother 
printers, but we have an abiding 
faith in the fact that with our HALF- 
MILLION DOLLAR MODERN PLANT 
and several hundred assistants, we 
can give top-notch service and furnish 
the finest quality of work to be had 
in the printing business. 

This declaration is made that you 
may form some idea of the scope of 
our equipment and organization, and 
what class of work you can expect 
to receive when you place an order. 

Many of your printing problems will 
be solved when you have a personal 
knowledge of 



this fact. So, 
"get busy" and 
telephone 
Greeley 3210 



CHARLES 
FRANCIS 
PRESS 

Printing Crafts Building 
SSTU'ES NEW YORK 



Let Those Who Serve You West Serve You Most 



qA 



N INVITATION to 
Visit the Home of the 



Charles Francis Pre ss 

Printing Crafts Building 



A cordial invitation is extended to 
those interested in PRINTING 
and BINDING to visit our new 
home, where you will be surprised 
at the exhibition of modern ma- 
chinery and the clock-like precision 
with which the manufacture of 
printing is accomplished. 

Those who contemplate accepting 
this invitation are requested to com- 
municate with Mr. Charles Francis. 
He will be glad to make arrange- 
ments for their reception. 



Absolute 'Reliability 



Unsurpassed Se 




a 



and 
SERVICE 



These are trying times. Materials 
are hard to obtain. Our employees 
are going to the front, making a 
scarcity of workers. 



Our Service will 
be as good as ever 



We are all determined to use our best efforts to 
greater production in order that our customers may 
not suffer and that we may "do our bit" in sustain- 
ing the cause of democracy. 

We ask, therefore, in order to economize, that our 
customers will help by carefully preparing copy 
and make as few alterations as possible in order 
that we may "pare a little off" to help in the 
great work. 

We have not raised our prices and will not do so 
unless compelled. 



Yours for Service 

Charles Francis Press 

PRINTING CRAFTS BUILDING 

"«£" , h A s,f«u E NEW YORK CITY 



We Are Elected I More Business 



The Country Is Saved 
Once More 

Printing did it. Without prim- 
ing the country would be lost indeed. 

WE CREATE the "stuff" that saves busi- 
nesses from disintegration and have been 
instrumental in placing many victories to the 
credit of our customers. 

LET US DO FOR YOU what- we have 
done for others. It will be to your interest 
to call on us at the PRINTING CRAFTS 
BUILDING, Eighth Ave.-33rd to 34th Sts — 
New York City. 

WE WILL SHOW YOU most convincing 
proof of our responsibility and competence 
to render you valuable assistance in pro- 
ducing anything pertaining to printing. 



Charles Francis Press 

TELEPHONE 3210 GREELEY 



JiJiJIiiKiMii 



I 



THAN EVER WILL BE THE 
STATISTIC REPORT OF THE 
UNITED STATES THIS YEAR. 

Over $7,000,000,000 in money is to 
be distributed in trade transactions, 
covering the full gamut of the world's 
needs, above our normal expenditures. 

Economy in food stuffs may be nec- 
essary for a short period, but the 
"forward march" of manufacturing, 
trading and distribution must goon. 

Now is the opportune time to recruit 
your forces and map out plans to 
secure a portion of this vast sum. 
Advertising is the "big gun" for the 
assault . Mow your bugle, assemble 
your copy and send it forthwith to 



Charles Fra> 



ANCIS I'HESS 



We Are Prepared 



ADVERTISING THE PRINTING OFFICE 

Under these conditions there was produced at leis- 
ure moments the series of advertisements presented in 
reduced form with this chapter. The advertising ap- 
peared every other week, and by being ever on the alert 
for new ideas, an effective one was always found ahead 
of the time for printing. Credit must be given for type 
effects in almost all instances to some of our own force 
whose excellent taste has helped many an advertiser to 
emphasize his points. The most that can be said for 
this advertising is that it has paid. Again and again 
have we heard from these announcements, and learned 
that concerns that knew us, but that had never tried 
our service, were favorably impressed, and many of 
them led to give us business. 

Another form of advertising which we have used 
successfully is the ornamental booklet, describing some 
features of our business, in the finest printing of which 
we were capable. We have issued at least one a year 
of these for a considerable period. Perhaps the best 
attention-getter of the series was a booklet of letters 
from satisfied customers, titled "A Feather in Our 
Cap." A real feather, dyed a brilliant red, was passed 
through slits into the cover of each copy. Several fair- 
sized poultry farms had to be depleted to furnish all 
the feathers required for the edition, and the dyer hu- 
morously remarked that we were sending up the price 
of feathers to meet egg prices, by reason of ordering so 
many! 

The novelty of the red feather attracted universal 
attention to this little booklet, and we had hundreds of 
requests for copies. They found a permanent place in 
the files of those who collect attractive advertising for 

197 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

their own purposes. This booklet fortunately contained 
such a collection of strongly worded letters from sat- 
isfied customers of long standing, and it was so widely 
circulated and read, that it proved the most effective 
advertisement of this character that we ever employed. 
The red feather caught the attention, and invited read- 
ing of the letters, and the kind statements therein of 
those who had bought printing over a period of years 
clinched the effect. 

"What We Give You," a reprint of the priceless gems 
left by Charles Lounsbury, was another effective book- 
let of such high character that all advertising except 
the imprint was omitted. 

A very different form of advertising was accom- 
plished when the Charles Francis Press moved into the 
Printing Crafts Building, and took the largest space 
there occupied by one tenant — 58,500 square feet. This 
brought us publicity of the sort that cannot be pur- 
chased ; it was the literal evidence of success, bringing 
us conspicuously into the limelight. Though it cost 
$20,000 to make the move from Thirteenth street to 
the Printing Crafts Building, the advertising alone was 
worth the money, and there was an immediate response 
in the way of increased business. The good neighbors 
acquired in this building are also easily worth another 
$20,000, and it has become a pleasurable habit to give 
them business and get business from them in a way 
never before possible. 

Having installed a large line of new machinery at 
the time of the move, which was now well disposed in 
exceptionally well-lighted quarters, it occurred to us 
that it would be possible to get effective moving pic- 

198 



ADVERTISING THE PRINTING OFFICE 

tures of the plant, a thing that could not be considered 
in 13th street, because of the crowding of the machin- 
ery and inadequate lighting. The matter was looked 
into, and we were told that ' 'movies" could be made for 
$600, but before the work was completed, the figures 
went to near $1,500. While advertising was completely 
excluded from these pictures, which were intended 
primarily for educational purposes, yet they proved an 
immense advertisement, both for the Charles Francis 
Press, and the makers of the modern machinery shown. 
They were instantly called for in many quarters, and 
have been shown and reshown ever since, in many of 
the larger cities of the country. 

But all these things are secondary to the really best 
advertising that the Charles Francis Press has had, 
which came from its own customers, and was paid for 
by efficient service. When the business was in its in- 
fancy it was determined that whatever else we did or 
did not do we would satisfy every customer, and give 
him what he wanted; that we would keep our prom- 
ises, and having made a contract would Torget every- 
thing else but the carrying out of it to the best advan- 
tage of the customer. In the course of time this policy 
gained us a reputation, which was far ahead of every 
other sort of advertising. 

For years we have been able to say to prospective 
customers, who usually demurred at our prices as being 
a little higher than charged by neighboring houses: 
"We have to charge you a little more, because we give 
more than most printers. We aim toward a hundred 
per cent, service. We shall be pleased to have you talk 
with any of our present customers or any of our former 

199 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

customers as to what sort of service we give with our 
printing." 

It has been possible to make this broad reference 
to all our patrons only through the policy of satisfying 
all. Sometimes this was costly. All printers make er- 
rors, and some misunderstandings of instructions must 
occur, involving both loss and annoyance. In such in- 
stances our policy has been to enquire what damage the 
customer placed on the errors he charged us with, and 
to write a check for the amount. The very fact that 
we do this being known throughout our force of work- 
men renders them doubly careful, so that we believe we 
have not made half as many costly blunders as the 
average large printery. The accuracy of our product, 
and clocklike regularity of delivery, has improved with 
the years, until all our customers recognize it, and we 
can and do refer to all of them, with results that make 
this the least expensive and most effective advertising 
we do. 

The way in which many of our customers have 
shown appreciation of our efforts to please is most 
gratifying. Here is a case in point: We were offered 
a publication that was a competitor of a publication 
coming from our presses for one of our best customers. 
Experience has shown us that publishers often object 
seriously to their work being handled in the same place 
as a competitor's, for the workmen naturally learn 
many things regarded as business confidences, of which 
they do not care to inform competitors. Therefore we 
thought it wise to ask our old customer if he objected 
to our taking on the competing publication. "Not a 
bit," was the prompt answer. "I'll do more; I'll call 

200 



ADVERTISING THE PRINTING OFFICE 

him up on the phone and advise him to give it to you." 

It surely is a pleasure to work for customers like 
that! 

It has become an axiom with us that the cheapest 
advertisement is a satisfied customer, and this has the 
advantage over any printed advertising, in that it 
proves its truth by its existence, and it goes on year 
after year, during the life of the customer, without any 
monthly bills being rendered for the expense. 

So much for personal experiences in advertising ; but 
the main question of publicity is so large that it is im- 
possible to undertake to cover it here, even if I were a 
qualified all-around advertising man, which is not my 
business. The sort of advertising best for each individ- 
ual printer is that which is best adapted to his sur- 
roundings and conditions. The specialists in printing 
have each a fundamental idea to publish to a given 
class of customers, and each has to solve his problem 
of how to best reach them. 

The drug label house finds a convenient medium in 
the trade papers going to drug houses ; the law printer, 
the stock-outfit house, the rush printer, the specialist 
in music printing, the three-color shop, the stationer 
and the big edition printer — each must find an outlet 
among the class of customers he seeks, and many of 
these are as well served in their line as Printers' Ink 
serves those who wish to reach the large advertisers 
and publishers. 

In addition to the trade paper, the specialist can al- 
ways secure lists of addresses of the class he aims to 
serve, and mail them announcements of his line. But 
in seeking business this way, the printer must not ex- 

201 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

pect too much of the advertisement itself. It can do 
no more than introduce the printer in new locations: 
he must follow up his advertising, and when he se- 
cures a trial order must use extreme pains to please 
and satisfy, or order No. 2 will never come. It is the 
making permanent customers of these advertising pros- 
pects that insures prosperity. Most advertising costs 
much more than can possibly be got in direct returns 
as printing orders. 

A one hundred dollar ad that brings $200 worth of 
printing and no more, shows a loss on its face of about 
$80 for the printer ; but if it brings one $10 job, and the 
customer likes it and stays, spending $1,000 a year, it 
pays for itself every year that customer is retained; 
and if that customer recommends the printer to others 
an endless-chain effect may be set up whose end never 
can be determined. And so we come back to the axiom 
that the pleased customer is the best advertisement. 

If the printer cannot think of anything better to 
place in his advertisements than "Low Prices," he had 
better not advertise at all, for such will bring him only 
work that yields no profit. Yet there always seem to 
be one or two printers in every large city who think it 
good business to advertise in the "Business Opportun- 
ity" columns that they will "execute'' letter-heads for 
$1.50 for the first 1,000, a figure far below cost. It 
is possible to specialize on letter-heads, and thus do 
them below the usual cost, but most printers who ad- 
vertise a cut rate seem to have the idea that this will 
work like the bargain sales in the department stores. 
This reasoning is erroneous. The department stores 
have made the bargain idea pay because they thus bring 

202 



ADVERTISING THE PRINTING OFFICE 

women into the store, who look around and are tempted 
to purchase something that does yield a profit. But 
"cheap printing" brings in only a class of amateur 
business men, who never want anything else, and are 
the very last to consider paying for a high-grade job. 
Such advertising not only does not bring good trade 
that will yield a profit, but it turns away desirable trade 
that might be had if the printer made any pretensions 
to giving quality and service. 

No matter what sort of printing one does, whatever 
his specialty, it is "quality" in some sense that he should 
claim in his advertising. Whether he excels in good 
taste, in good service, or in carrying a large variety 
of something, or in having exceptional knowledge of 
details, he must always make it apparent that he is try- 
ing to connect with those who ask "not how much, but 
how well." It pays best to cater to those who want 
service, and to give them their orders always on time. 

The average customer may talk more of low prices 
perhaps than of anything else, but he really wants 
quality more than price (or if he does not he soon will) , 
for experience teaches all business men that the good 
quality printing is the cheapest, and that very low 
prices mean poor quality and probably worse service. 

American printers have developed greatly as adver- 
tisers during the past twenty years. Judging by ap- 
pearances it is probable that fully twice as much ad- 
vertising is now printed to connect with the same vol- 
ume of trade. Expressed in figures, the printer who 
used to spend one per cent, of his annual income in 
advertising now spends two per cent. ; and as the out- 
put of printing has also trebled in twenty years, this 

203 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

means six times as much advertising now as then. 
The reason is that various advertising printers have 
come to the front and awakened the trade in their vici- 
nage to what can be accomplished by brainy methods 
of publicity. 

One of the most serious weaknesses of direct adver- 
tising by printers is that they are apt to print beautiful 
folders or booklets in spare time, and send them out 
when some clerk has nothing else to do. This poor 
practice results in the advertising beginning to pull in 
busy season when work is least needed. The right 
course is to send out good advertising when the printer 
is busy, that its effect may be felt in dull season when 
the work is doubly valuable. Direct advertising re- 
quires to be systematic, and if done only in dull periods 
it is certain to be unsystematic. 

It is hard to suggest novelties in advertising for 
printers, but one comes to mind of a Jersey printer, 
who used it effectually, and so far as I know nobody 
has reproduced his idea. He got in touch with one of 
those geniuses called a weather prophet, and framed 
about a hundred-word prophecy on the coming month's 
weather. Regularly on the last day of each month the 
merchants on his mailing list received a card with 
prophecy of the weather for the next 30 days, beauti- 
fully printed, often with some suggestions that if the 
weather wasn't always right, at least the printing could 
be depended on. He always had something clever and 
catchy to say, that made people read the cards and pass 
them around. The fact that they were always mailed 
so as to reach customers the last day of the month im- 
pressed them with his promptness, and the advertising 

204 



ADVERTISING THE PRINTING OFFICE 

is said to have been effective for a long period. Such 
a scheme must of course wear itself out, as we know 
the weather prophecies cannot all come true, and then 
it has to be replaced by a new advertising novelty. 

The imprint on good printing is an advertisement 
that costs nothing, and may carry weight. Why some 
printers place their imprints on the variety of jobs 
classed as "rotten" is a mystery that cannot be fath- 
omed. We have all seen jobs that we would want to 
sue the printer for libel if he attached our name to 
them; yet these people seemingly are proud of their 
work. 

Benjamin Franklin was the first printer in this coun- 
try to show a knowledge of advertising. His quaint 
sayings were written to attract attention to himself 
and his printing business. The printer who has adver- 
tising to prepare will do well to study his maxims. 

It pays the printer to use a superior grade of sta- 
tionery for his business — something so much better 
than the average that whenever an estimate goes out 
on it the customer is sure to be impressed with the fact 
that your quality is second to none. It is a waste of 
money and effort to advertise and not back it up with 
the quality and service to match the claims made. If 
you do not make good on the trial order that an ad 
brings, the prospective customer simply sets you down 
as a liar, as well as a third-class printer, and not only 
never appears again, but probably expresses his opinion 
of you at times so as to turn away other trade. So, 
by this line of argument, for the third time, we arrive 
at the conclusion that "the pleased customer is the best 
advertisement." 

205 



The Small, the Medium and the Large 
Plant 

THERE is no wholly satisfactory, accepted term 
in use for a printing factory. "Office" is the old 
name, a relic of the days when it was what we 
now term a stationer's. Recognizing* that it is 
no longer an office, we often use the shorter term 
"print shop," which is well enough for a small shop, 
but inappropriate for the large one. So we are coming 
to use the term "printery," which is a good word ; but 
why should we hesitate to say "printing factory," and 
be done with it? That is what the great majority of im- 
portant plants have become, and only by development 
on the lines of other successful manufacturing are we 
now bringing printing to its rightful position as one of 
the half dozen greatest factory industries of the world. 
Printing factories may be generally classed as small, 
medium and large, to which should be added specialty 
shops and private plants. The small printery is best 
entitled to the name of printing office, which it seems 
inclined to retain, for it is usually an office with a work- 
room and a little machinery attached, and does not sug- 
gest the factory. A machinist would call it a jobbing 
shop. There are hundreds of these little job offices in 
every large city of the United States, and probably not 
a fourth of them can be ranked as prosperous. The 
rest get along somehow, picking up a precarious living, 
printing cards, orders of dance, menus, circulars, sta- 
tionery, journals, and whatever small job work comes 
their way. Nearly all claim to be able to print any- 

206 



THE SMALL, THE MEDIUM AND THE LARGE PLANT 

thing, which means usually anything that can be run on 
a job press, one at a time, though some of them run one 
or more cylinders. 

It is a curious fact that a majority of these little of- 
fices seem to be run by printers who have never thor- 
oughly mastered their trade, and who cannot hold down 
jobs in really good offices ; they have either started as 
amateurs, or have graduated from the class known as 
two-thirders, and they are many of them prone to cling 
to the "two-third" idea, that they cannot afford to pay 
more than two-thirds of going wages, and that they 
must execute work at about two-thirds of the market 
price to get enough to keep going. 

Under such conditions they cater only for cheap 
work, they seldom do good printing, and they work 
hard and are poorly paid. They are the unfortunates 
who have given the printing business a lack of stand- 
ing, so that many class them mentally with the small 
barber shop, delicatessen and stationery store. Most 
of them would be better off if they could auction their 
outfits, take a six months' course in a good trade school, 
becoming real printers, and as a result, enjoy receiving 
the union scale of wages, which it is beyond their abil- 
ity to earn in these small job plants. 

Other small shops there are, run by really competent 
workmen, who prefer independence to being employed, 
whose chief failing is that on the average they work 
too cheaply, and while they know how to do good print- 
ing, often deliver an inferior quality in their effort to 
compete with amateur shops and keep down the cost 
to what they believe the public will stand. A story 
is told of one of this sort who was induced by the secre- 

207 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

tary of a Ben Franklin Club to make use of their cost 
system. After about three weeks, the secretary called 
on him, and asked how it worked. "I am going to stop 
using it," said the printer; "it simply shows a loss on 
every job I do. To follow it up I would have to go out 
of business." The secretary talked with him, and finally 
secured a promise that as a personal favor, he would 
continue to use the cost system for two months longer. 
At the end of that time he called on the printer again, 
enquiring, "How are you getting on with our cost sys- 
tem?" "Confound the thing," exclaimed the printer. 
"I have had to raise my prices on everything. I sup- 
pose it will drive away all business, and I'll have to 
quit soon." Five months later the printer of his own 
accord called on the secretary, and signed up as a mem- 
ber of the Ben Franklin Club. "Bless you!" he said. 
"I've got money in the bank, for the first time since I 
started. You have taught me that I was working be- 
low cost, and that the public are willing to pay a living 
price for good work." 

The country small printing office is a different propo- 
sition from its city duplicate. It exists to meet a posi- 
tive demand for a printer to handle the local wants of 
the town or village. It is usually connected with a 
country newspaper, and has an equipment of one cylin- 
der press, about two jobbers, a cutter, stitcher, and 
general outfit. Many of these plants are moderately 
profitable, though most of them fail to get the prices 
they should for their work, and the proprietors, en- 
grossed in editing the local sheet, frequently fail to 
realize their opportunity to make money on the purely 
manufacturing end of printing. 

208 



THE SMALL, THE MEDIUM AND THE LARGE PLANT 

Small country plants mostly make the mistake of 
letting the large jobs of printing from their towns go 
to the city ; because they and their customers both think 
the country office unable to handle the large work. Us- 
ually they could handle it if they knew how. At times 
one of these country shops hires a man from Chicago 
or New York, and goes after the large work in its 
neighborhood, and gets it. The possibilities of retain- 
ing the trade in his vicinity are worthy the considera- 
tion of every country printer. 

These small offices of both city and country exist 
mainly to serve a small local trade, and rarely do their 
proprietors aspire to anything higher. Yet these little 
printers are a vitally important factor in the printing 
industry, for they set the minimum prices for printing 
in their neighborhoods. Because they work cheaper 
than the larger shops, they are factors for keeping 
down local prices. The small printing office depreciates 
the prices that can be had by the medium-sized shop, 
and the medium-sized shop cuts the prices of the big 
shop. Competing almost wholly on price, the small 
shop rarely aims to do fine work, and does not recog- 
nize that if it kept up the quality it could also charge 
the price. 

Let no one think that the proprietors of the small 
shops are all men with little minds, however. Here 
and there they develop genius, and from the ranks of 
the tiny printeries there step out, from time to time, 
men who master conditions, and develop large printing 
factories. A considerable number of the proprietors of 
the larger printing factories of the country were at 
some time operating little shops run mainly with the 

209 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

aid of a few boys. In the secluded little nook often lies 
the acorn from which a great oak will spring. Thus, 
while the great majority of little printing offices are 
run on anything but business principles, yet here is 
where we have to look for the saving quantity that will 
develop to really doing things in the years to come. So 
let no one despise the small printer because he is small ; 
Benjamin Franklin graduated from a small print shop. 

The small printer usually starts in with not enough 
money, and goes into debt and stays there because he 
thinks the only way to get work is by charging less 
than other printers in his vicinity. He buys second- 
hand material, because it is cheap at the outset, and 
seldom realizes that it costs more in the long run. If 
he will but do good printing all the time, and do it 
promptly, he will find that he can get in enough money 
to get out of debt and discount his bills. By cultivating 
good-pay customers, giving them what they want, and 
gaining their friendship, he may gradually work out 
of the smallest class, and get into the class of profit- 
paying shops. 

A really good printer, with a two-cylinder and ten- 
jobber plant in a large city, who handles his work 
right, knows what it costs, and is accurate and prompt 
in deliveries, should be able to own his plant clear of 
debt, own a home and raise a family, and take them out 
automobiling regularly. There are scores of such of- 
fices in the large cities, with not over $10,000 to $20,000 
invested, whose proprietors draw their $50 Saturday 
nights, as they are entitled to, and enjoy a thoroughly 
American independence. This is possible because they 
know their business, look after the details personally, 

210 



THE SMALL, THE MEDIUM AND THE LARGE PLANT 

and see that things are done right. To these men I 
take off my hat. They have solved the problem of liv- 
ing well, and at the same time are independent of the 
heavier responsibilities that come with operating the 
large manufacturing printery. 

Observe these successful smaller printers, and it will 
be noted that they follow certain general rules. First, 
they choose good locations, where they can get to their 
trade and their customers can get to them, and where 
there is good light and satisfactory transportation fa- 
cilities ; they are not disposed to put up with old-fash- 
ioned conditions, but look for that which is up-to-date. 
They understand the theory of advertising, and use it 
for themselves and for the concerns for which they 
print. They have conspicuous signs, and they regu- 
larly send out samples of fine printing to keep their cli- 
entele alive to the fact that they are always on the 
job, looking for work, and prepared to do it well; and 
they follow up their prospects, and cultivate good cus- 
tomers. Many of them have one large customer, whom 
they have tied up to, and whom they depend upon to 
carry them along in dull times ; others secure a publi- 
cation or operate a specialty to have something regular 
coming in. 

These progressive young concerns are apt to fit up 
their business offices attractively, and hang specimens 
of fine printing on the walls, so that visitors coming in 
are impressed with the grade of printing executed. 
They take membership in the nearest association of 
master printers, and watch the methods of successful 
men operating the larger shops, learning all they can 
from them. They are the sort that subscribe for the 

211 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

trade journals and read them, profiting by what they 
read. The average printer, large or small, can increase 
his earnings by spending one evening a week reading 
the printing trade journals. No intelligent master 
printer can do this faithfully without picking up that 
which will apply to his own print shop, and increase 
his earnings or reduce his costs. It is the easiest way 
to success, to know what other good printers are doing, 
and take up the hints they drop continually. It is a 
mistake for any of us to think we know it all, and that 
the writers for the trade papers can never teach us. 
The world of printing moves, and the printing trade 
journals record the movements; he who neglects them 
stands in his own light. 

The trade paper readers are the go-ahead men, the 
backbone of the industry. They do not believe in buy- 
ing a press every time they get a new job, but build up 
only as fast as they can pay for more machinery with- 
out cramping themselves. They have cash in the bank 
all the time and discount their bills, and so avoid the 
danger of being pinched for money. 

The middle-sized office is an uncertain proposition. 
If it be the healthy outgrowth of a small office, it is 
likely on solid ground and maintains prosperity; but 
if it be a case of loading up with mortgaged machinery, 
bought to fill contracts taken at a close price, and if the 
proprietor is taking chances and trying to get into the 
class of big manufacturing printers running large edi- 
tions, then it is always a dangerous institution. 

A $25,000 to $50,000 plant, connected with a leading 
newspaper in a city of fair size, is apt to be a most 
prosperous and progressive business, probably the best 

212 



THE SMALL, THE MEDIUM AND THE LARGE PLANT 

in its field, naturally securing the cream of the trade of 
the locality. An office of the same size in a city as large 
as St. Louis, Buffalo or Boston, requires exceptional 
ability as to both good printing and good management 
to make it profitable and keep it a paying property. 
These medium-sized offices in the great cities appear to 
live largely on competitive work, which is apt to yield 
a very small margin of profit, and to invite the doing 
of work at or below cost in dull seasons. 

The safe course for such plants is to work up a spe- 
cialty of some sort — get into one line of work that is not 
overcrowded, and do it better than others — so as to be- 
come known as headquarters for that particular thing. 
When the Charles Francis Press was young, I saw an 
opening for a specialty in music printing, which is not 
well understood by the average printer, and it helped 
carry us along for a number of years during the transi- 
tion period from the smaller to the larger shop. 

The medium-sized offices that do not learn to special- 
ize on something are very apt to fail. Printing is be- 
coming more and more specialized, and only the small 
plant can afford to do a little of everything. One has 
only to canvass the list of printeries in a large city to 
note that the concerns that are doing well are almost all 
specializing on some class of work. As soon as an of- 
fice outgrows the small class it is apt to drift into a 
class of very close competition, in which profit-making 
is all but impossible. But in specializing, the competi- 
tion is reduced, for the customer, having tried perhaps 
a dozen printeries to find the specialist, and discovering 
that he does the work better and cheaper than the gen- 
eral printer, is usually satisfied, and does not try to 

213 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

hunt up other specialists of that sort, and pit them 
against him, to reduce the charges. 

There has developed among the large business 
houses that use considerable printing a practice of 
sending out nearly all the work on estimate, to from 
five to ten printing houses. Under this system the work 
tends to seek the cheapest houses, and as a result there 
is no money to be made in this field ; hence the printer- 
ies that have grown into the medium class realize the 
necessity of getting away from fierce competition, and 
the wiser ones adopt a specialty. Others secure a fav- 
orable contract for a terms of years from a large and 
strong customer, and live off his patronage. This oper- 
ates well until the contract expires or the large cus- 
tomer fails, in which case the printing office is apt to 
fail also. 

Opportunities for specializing in the large cities are 
numerous. One firm will go in for labels, another for 
stationer's work, another for law blanks, another for 
colored booklets, calendars, loose-leaf specialties, com- 
position of advertisements, department store duplica- 
tors, specialties in a particular trade, as clothier's print- 
ing, political work, selling composition, and so on ad 
infinitum. By giving special attention to and fitting 
up for one of these many classes of work it is possible 
to manufacture from fifteen to forty per cent, below 
the cost of making the same goods in a general print- 
ery; therefore the work can be taken, held, and made 
to yield a profit. 

Specializing in linotype composition has become so 
common that in most cities composition can be bought 
as readily as engraving. In the larger cities these 

214 



THE SMALL, THE MEDIUM AND THE LARGE PLAINT 

plants organize as groups, and issue scales of prices. 
They are usually able to produce composition and sell 
it to neighboring printers at a rate as low as they can 
do it for themselves, and often lower, because they keep 
the machines going, frequently on double shifts. Even 
the large plants, well capitalized, buy a good deal of 
composition from these specialists, who mostly make 
money by confining their energies strictly to the one 
thing. 

The United States Printing Company, with large 
plants in Brooklyn, Baltimore and Cincinnati, is a most 
conspicuous example of successful specialization. These 
great printing plants were built up gradually, first by 
printing colored labels, doing them both better and 
cheaper than could ordinary printers. When this was 
well established, they improved their equipments and 
enlarged their field, until now they do a great variety 
of color printing, not involving type work, as playing 
cards, car signs, tobacco labels, package wrappers, etc., 
mostly for large concerns requiring enormous quanti- 
ties. They do not operate composing plants, confining 
their energies mainly to presswork, both typographic 
and lithographic, and have grown up with the food 
packers and large advertisers, who have to make their 
goods attractive to assist the sale. At their Cincinnati 
plant they run an excellent restaurant for their em- 
ployees, accommodating about 500 at one time, charg- 
ing three cents a cup for coffee and other things in pro- 
portion, and by personal experience I can testify to the 
quality of the food. This is mentioned only as an in- 
stance of how thoroughly this concern has worked out 
all its problems in efficiency. Their history is an ob- 

215 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

ject lesson in capable specializing. This subject of spe- 
cialization is further discussed in the chapter on "Serv- 
ice, Efficiency and Specialization." 

The private plant is a thing for separate considera- 
tion. Here the manufacturer is his own customer; he 
thinks and cares little for trade conditions, except that 
he must be able to make his printing cheaper than he 
can buy it; or he must get a better service. He is a 
specialist, though not catering to the public. The large 
private plant may develop special machinery for unus- 
ual work which it handles in quantity. It will always 
develop a class of special conveniences for handling its 
class of printing, and will also train men to expertness 
in its individual line of production. 

The paper box factories of Robert Gair Co. in Brook- 
lyn constitute a conspicuous example of a combined 
specialty and private plant of large dimensions. A hun- 
dred cylinder presses are employed in printing wrap- 
pers, paper boxes and paper and cardboard specialties, 
color printing and posters. Every detail is handled sci- 
entifically, like other modern factories. They even 
make their own ink, or a considerable portion of it, 
keeping all their costs down to the minimum because 
they are able to preserve a certain routine, with scarce- 
ly any idle time. This sort of private printing plant 
is an economy. Other manufacturers having a large 
volume of printing that will bear specializing are per- 
fectly justified in building up their own private print- 
ing plants. Sometimes they make mistakes, however, 
and invest considerable money in a plant under a mis- 
taken idea of the costs of printing, learning later that 
their investment is an almost total loss. 

216 



THE SMALL, THE MEDIUM AND THE LARGE PLANT 

I question whether municipal printing plants have 
ever paid, or whether the printing of the United States 
Government could not have been let by contract for less 
than it costs to do it in the private plant that we know 
as the Government Printing House at Washington, one 
of the largest and best-equipped printing factories in 
the world. This is a question of politics rather than 
management, and as such beyond the scope of this book, 
only being cited here as evidence that volume of produc- 
tion does not necessarily mean economy in printing. 

There is a class of private printing plant that grows 
up in a questionable manner, and usually spells loss to 
all concerned. Some over-clever workman in a print- 
ing house, who is employed wholly on the work of one 
large customer, until he gets very familiar with it, and 
with the men who order the printing, figures that it 
would be a fine thing for him to induce them to start 
their own place, and put him in charge, at a salary 
considerably higher than he is earning. So he goes to 
the customer, and says : "Why don't you make a profit 
off your printing — start your own plant and let me run 
it? I can save you 25 per cent." 

The customer figures with him, concludes the idea is 
right, buys a plant under the tutelage of this alleged 
expert in their work, and takes him in as the manager. 
It is a fine thing for him, sure, as he takes no risks, and 
gets an increased wage in good cash every Saturday. 
Occasionally such a man makes good, and secures an 
economy for his patron. More often it turns out that 
he was simply unfamiliar with all the costs of printing, 
and that when a regular balance sheet is obtained it 
develops that the costs are as great as before, and per- 

217 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

haps greater. The private plant may run on, because 
it is bought and paid for, and the owners have to wear 
out their machinery to get back their investment, but 
they are very apt to find that they have been taken in 
by a man, perhaps well meaning, but biased by his own 
interest, and ignorant of what actual costs were, until 
he has learned at their expense. 

A most common reason for printing costing more 
in a private plant than in a competitive printery is in- 
ability to keep its plant running uniformly and continu- 
ously. Almost every business is subject to its rush sea- 
sons. A private plant that is called upon to produce, 
say, $10,000 worth of printing a month for ^.ve or six 
months of the year, and which can supply but $5,000 
or $6,000 worth during the other months, is about sure 
to lose money, because it has to carry most of its work- 
men and its overhead charges during the dull six 
months. When there is periodicity in the demand for 
printing, the private plant is almost certainly fore- 
doomed to failure. Many a house that has tried it has 
appeared some years later among the buyers of print- 
ing, admitting a very heavy loss by its experiment. No 
concern should establish a private plant without having 
the soundest advice from more than one printer of large 
business experience, who has no personal interest in the 
scheme. Taking the "say-so" of a man who wants a 
job with them is highly dangerous, because such a man 
is likely to be deceived himself as well as to deceive 
them. 

Examples of successful private plants are those of 
several prominent insurance companies, commercial 
agencies, and large houses whose work is distinctive, 

218 



THE SMALL, THE MEDIUM AND THE LARGE PLANT 

large in volume, and pretty evenly distributed through 
the calendar year. Some combinations of trade papers 
have done well with their plants, and others have 
failed to produce as cheaply or to secure as good a serv- 
ice as they can purchase in the market of commercial 
printers. A large publisher told me recently: "I pre- 
fer to confine my energies to publishing, and trying to 
make all I can out of that, to dividing my interest, and 
that of my force, in trying to save money on the print- 
ing or manufacturing end. I am willing to allow the 
printer to make a little out of me, believing I can make 
more in publishing than in competing with him." 

The large commercial printing plants of the country 
have been a growth mainly of the last thirty years. In 
1885 there were only four great big printing houses in 
New York City, whose annual business approached or 
exceeded the half-million mark. Now there are fif- 
teen or twenty such plants here and nearly as many in 
Chicago, while St. Louis, Philadelphia and Boston also 
have their great printing factories. These cities do 
half the printing executed in the United States, and 
what are known as the large printing offices, with the 
newspaper offices, do four-fifths of the printing in the 
entire country. 

These great printeries are factories, and have de- 
veloped along the lines of other factories by systema- 
tizing, introducing the latest machinery, and creating 
a service of prompt delivery that is not possible with 
smaller establishments. They are as different from the 
large printing houses of twenty-five years ago as are 
the railway terminal stations of great cities different 
from the old stations. 

219 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The modern large printing factory is an evolution 
resulting from the increased number and circulation of 
magazines, periodicals, trade catalogs, mail order 
work, and large editions generally. A quarter century 
ago, just as the ten-cent magazine floated to success, 
these large-edition and magazine plants were meas- 
ured by the number of their cylinder presses. Any- 
thing over a ten-cylinder outfit was considered a big 
plant. As the single cylinder machines came to be con- 
sidered too slow for publication work, the perfecting 
press was developed, printing large sheets on both sides 
at a single operation. Then followed magazine web and 
rotary presses in a great variety of styles, two-color 
presses, four-color presses, and latterly two-sheet 
presses, all permitting more rapid and economical pro- 
duction of long runs. The offset press, the automatic 
feeders and folders, trimmers, gathering machines, etc., 
have all added to the productive capacity of the large 
plants, and the development of these is sketched in the 
chapter "Fifty Years in Printing." 

With large batteries of costly composing machines, 
typecasters, and engraving and electrotyping plants as 
adjuncts, the great printing factories of America have 
attained large output with a much less proportional 
number of men than formerly. The increased demand 
for printing has been such, however, that more men 
are employed in the industry every year in spite of the 
very wide introduction of automatic and rapid machin- 
ery. It is in the utilization of the new automatic or 
semi-automatic machinery that the large plants excel. 
New and costly machinery has enabled them to distance 
the medium-sized and often anciently equipped plants 

220 



THE SMALL, THE MEDIUM AND THE LARGE PLANT 

of the last century, and to produce both better and 
cheaper, besides markedly cutting down the time re- 
quired for turning out large contracts. 

While the large plant is no longer measured by its 
batteries of cylinders, these faithful servants are still 
valued, and are to be seen in long rows, in all large 
shops, operating at higher speeds than of yore, and 
being also larger and heavier. For medium-sized runs, 
say for periodicals and books of 10,000 to 50,000 edi- 
tions, they are still staple producers, though every year 
more work goes on to special and automatic machines. 

These conditions of dependence on improved machin- 
ery have altered the status of the large printing fac- 
tory in a considerable degree. There is no longer ef- 
fort to reduce cost by squeezing labor. Improved fast 
machinery and efficient system are relied upon to keep 
down the cost of production, while increased speed and 
service are relied on to hold trade. It is no longer dif- 
ficult to issue 100,000 copies of a large magazine or a 
big trade catalog in a few days, and all the large print- 
ing factories are prepared to contract for large work 
in much less time than was possible a few years ago. 



221 



Office Management and Keeping 
of Accounts 

IT is the management in the office that determines 
the profit or loss in operating a printing business. 
No amount of excellent printing, no installation of 
rapid machinery, no corps of experienced workmen 
can compensate for lack of efficiency and under- 
standing in the front office. Here the policies and 
prices are made, the orders are entered and passed into 
the mechanical department, the business is handled, 
the accounts paid and bills collected or adjusted. The 
office is to the plant what the head is to a human being. 

Once a Philadelphia printer failed and came to an- 
other city looking for a job. 

"Can you estimate on work?" was asked. 

"Certainly; I did nearly all the estimating in our 
place." 

"How much margin for profit did you allow in your 
figuring?" 

"We always calculated to make 25 per cent." 

"You don't mean to tell me that you actually made 
25 per cent?" 

"Oh, no; I don't believe that we averaged to make 
over 10 per cent." 

"And you failed?" 

"Ye— yes." 

This man was convicted out of his own mouth of in- 
competency. Apparently it cost him 25 per cent, more 
to do his work than he estimated. Either he "guessed" 
very far out, or he did not know how to keep down the 

222 



OFFICE MANAGEMENT AND KEEPING OF ACCOUNTS 

costs of production. The only way to extract money 
from a printing business or any other sort of business 
is to know your cost by using the standard cost system, 
and to keep exactly in touch with what is being done in 
your shop all the time. 

The cost cannot be known if the returns on time-slips 
are inaccurately made, or if the system of recording is 
faulty. Some printers figure their costs by assuming 
that an eighth-medium jobber is worth $1 an hour, a 
half-medium $1.25, a pony $1.50, a large cylinder $2, 
a hand compositor $1.25, and a linotype $1.75. They 
calculate that if they add 10 per cent, to these it is 
sure to be profit. Obviously such figures mislead in- 
stead of informing. These hour costs may vary as 
much as 25 per cent. 

The purpose of bookkeeping is to furnish the infor- 
mation "where you are at" every day and every month 
in the year. Some systems I have seen appear con- 
cocted for the purpose of concealing from one the real 
status of affairs. The old style of bookkeeping, with 
large account books, imposing ledgers, and a row of 
clerks making double entries of everything, costing five 
per cent, to obtain once a year a balance of profit or 
loss, is of little value in a modern printing house. You 
need to know the condition of your business at all times, 
or leaks will arise and something will get away from 
you, and one day you will wake up and discover that 
you are making deficits instead of profits. 

The most individual features of the methods of book- 
keeping of the Charles Francis Press, depended upon 
to keep track of the condition of the business, are indi- 
cated below: 

223 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

Every morning there is laid on my desk a tickler of 
the working cash balances, which may read something 
like this : 

DAILY TICKLER — RECEIPTS 

Date— Nov. 13, 1916. 

Balance previous day $2,635.44 

Smith & Smart 799.84 

J. I. C. Pub. Co 6.20 

Penna. R. R. Co 137.11 

Doemall Printing Co 762.42 

Doemsmore Goode Co 17.44 

City Capers 417.76 

D. T. Adv. Co 35.89 $4,812.10 

Minor Expense — 

Surrey Mag., Postage $44.70 

A. J. Pratt, Pub 1.70 

Gross Pub. Co 22.40 

J. I. C. Express and Post. . . 46.94 

Macy's .58 

Doemall Express and Post. 16.96 

Scribble Pub. Co 35.83 

Lathrop, Sundries 2.50 

Carfares 2.70 174.31 

$4,637.79 
Morning Checks 

Jolly & Co $58.00 

Rock, Bottom & Co 250.00 

G. Munition Works 2,563.85 

World Underwriting Co. . . . 669.15 

Pucker-Prunes Co 54.69 3,595.69 

Working cash balance. . $8,233.48 

Bank Balances — 

Date— Nov. 13, 1916. 

Security Bank of New York $4.40 

Metropolitan Bank 69.01 

New Netherland Bank 4,437.57 

Cash 37.91 

Slips 88.90 

$4,637.79 

The above informs me what the working cash is and 
where it is, as well as what firms have paid their bills 
that day. By then turning to a list of "Accounts Ee- 

224 



OFFICE MANAGEMENT AND KEEPING OF ACCOUNTS 

ceivable" which is placed on my desk at regular month- 
ly intervals, I can run it over and see who ought to be 
prodded up to send in their checks. Looking up an- 
other list of "Accounts Payable" which is also regularly 
on my desk, I can instruct the cashier what checks 
I desire written. The entire process does not take 
over five minutes of my time, and I know that I am 
acting understandingly, and not guessing at anything. 
I am up to date as to my resources and obligations, 
and I am not likely to spend cash for one purpose that 
is needed for another, while it is all but impossible to 
overdraw an account. Deposits are carried in differ- 
ent banks for different purposes, and run large or small 
according to conditions. The endeavor is to keep the 
working balance as small as is consistent with safety, 
so as not to have money idle. 

To know the profit day by day is of course impossi- 
ble in a business so complicated as printing, and no at- 
tempt is made to judge of profits at intervals short of 
one month. But I have learned that when a balance 
like that below is struck, it closely approximates the 
real profit: 

January product $40,000 

Wages paid $16,000 

Invoices 10,000 

General expense 10,000 36,000 

Estimated profit $4,000 

Such a balance is near enough to accuracy to show 
whether one is gaining or losing, affording a financial 
thermometer of profit or loss. It is well to accompany 

this with a 

225 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 



COMPARATIVE STATEMENT 



1915 Est 

Amount of Business Profit 

Dec, 1914, $32,306 (Loss) $4,214 
Jan., 1915, 33,191 (Prof.) 3,073 
Feb., " 34,492 " 3,015 
Mar., " 41,172 " 5,665 



1916 


Est. 


Amt. of Business 


Profit 


Dec, 1915, $38,803 


$1,571 


Jan., 1916, 36,054 


6,731 


Feb., " 38,638 


5,046 


Mar., " 42,916 


3,198 



$11,753 
4,214 



Totals, $141,161 $7,539 Totals, $156,411 $16,546 

Profit, 5^$ per cent. Profit, IO3/5 per cent. 

Same months, 1913-'14, $156,501 Profit, $12,156— or 7 7/10% 

The above informs the printer definitely whether he 
is doing better or worse than the previous year, and 
also indicates monthly variations, which is valuable in- 
formation, as every business has its seasons. 

Every six months we take an inventory, trying to 
write off the actual rather than the theoretical depre- 
ciation, and balance sheets are drawn up in the en- 
deavor to show the profits as exactly as possible. At 
such times we write off bad bills deemed uncollectible, 
and make every effort to avoid fictitious assets or any- 
thing that may tend to deceive us as to what is the 
actual standing of the concern. 

Our half-yearly balance sheets are made up in this 
form: 

BALANCE SHEET, MAY 31 
(Figures Fictitious) 

ASSETS 

Cash on hand $1,626.14 

Cash in bank — 

Security Bank 6,799.35 

Metropolitan Bank 783.28 



$9,208.77 



226 



OFFICE MANAGEMENT AND KEEPING OF ACCOUNTS 



Carried forward $9,208.77 

Sinking Funds — 

Equitable Trust Co 

Mutual Alliance Trust Co 

New Netherland Bank 

Bills receivable (See List) 

Accounts receivable ( See List) 

Patent account (Expended to date) . . . 

Printing supplies on hand (See Inven- 
tory) 

Ink 

Rollers 

Linotype metal 

Paper on hand (See Inventory) 

Electros on hand 

Unfinished work (Expended thereon to 

date) 

Waverly Bindery (Current acct. bal.) 

Machinery, type and fixtures 

Stocks and shares — Waverly Bindery. . 

Int. B. & 0. Co 

Morgan, Gould & Van Co 



919.02 




2,191.65 




6,397.46 






$9,508.13 




5,234.38 




29,648.98 




468.14 


424.25 




824.97 




2,597.50 






$3,846.72 






1,793.25 




200.00 




4.813.55 




8,831.14 




207,442.61 


10,000.00 




2,500.00 




1,000.00 





Prepaid insurance — Life -4,186.30 

Fire 2,020.00 

Compensation 750.00 



$13,500.00 



6,956.30 



Total assets $301,451.97 

LIABILITIES 

Accounts payable (Trade accounts as 

listed) $5,575.76 

Bills payable (Trade and press accts.) $6,600.00 

(Bank loan, Sec. N. B.) 7,000.00 13,600.00 

Officers' personal accounts (Undrawn 

balances) 3,325.88 

Bonds 9,000.00 

Capital- 
Preferred authorized $50,000 

In treasury 38,300 11,700.00 

Common authorized 75,000 

In treasury $8,600 

Spec, reserve 9,000 17,600 57,400.00 69,100.00 

Surplus— Balance, Nov. 30, last 200,311.43 

Added this half year 538.90 

$200,850.33 



Total Liabilities $301,451.97 

227 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 



TRADING ACCOUNT, SIX MONTHS ENDING MAY 31 

Dec. 1. To unfinished work, brought 

forward $4,002.30 

May 31. Wages, Composing room.. $41,639.25 

Pressroom 37,276.65 

Stock room 2,827.00 

$81,742.90 

Salaries 9,427.78 

Office salaries and wages. . 2,649.00 

Printing supplies — Ink. . . . 6,104.45 

Rollers 568.80 

Sundries 1,025.59 

7,698.84 

Paper 5,744.19 

Electrotyping and engVg 3,284.00 

Printing and binding 

(bought outside.) 31,957.76 

Expense 3,318.51 

Repairs to machinery..... 1,784.84 

Repairs to motors 222.80 

2,007.64 

Electrical repairs and sup- 
plies 317.61 

Advertising 582.34 

Convention Expense 500.00 

Rent 1,200.00 

Building Expense — Fuel.. 309.25 

Repairs 334.76 

Sundries 244.67 

Wages 1,707.00 

2,595.68 

Insurance 1,498.54 

Discounts allowed custom- 
ers 3,139.76 

Expressage 1,307.21 

Light and power 5,146.96 

$168,121.02 
Balance carried to profit 

and loss account 6,906.14 

Total $175,027.16 

May 21. By production for 6 months $166,402.89 

Less allowances 640.05 

■ $165,762.84 

Commissions 3,590.21 

Less allowance 16.25 

3,573.96 

228 



OFFICE MANAGEMENT AND KEEPING OF ACCOUNTS 

Discounts off purchases. . . 566.19 

Interest 269.65 

B. Z. account sales 40.97 

Unfinished work (Expend- 
ed thereon to date) 4,813.55 

Total $175,027.16 

PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNT 

May 21. To bad debts written off (See List) $2,497.47 

Bond interest 270.00 

Dividend, preferred stock 497.77 

Dividend, common stock 3,102.00 

Balance, being profit for the six months 538.90 

$6,906.14 

The lists referred to in above balance sheet are at- 
tached to it in a folder, the entire account being filed 
with similar balances for convenient reference. While 
the amounts given are specified as fictitious, yet it 
should be stated that they represent correct propor- 
tions, and thus show actual results in the Charles 
Francis Press in one of our poorest half years. The 
actual ultimate profit shown, it will be observed, is only 
a little more than $500. 

There are printers who would have figured the en- 
tire $6,906 surplus as profits, but I do not consider that 
paying dividends of six per cent, to capital invested is 
dispensing profit, any more than is paying salaries. 
Profit comes after salaries, interest and all such things 
as depreciation and poor accounts are written off. If 
there is nothing remaining after caring for all these 
things then there are no real profits. There is no get- 
ting away from the fact that during that half year (of 
financial depression) we simply paid running expenses. 
And experience indicates that that is what the average 

229 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

printer does in hard times — rarely can he do better 
when a panic reduces the volume of work in the market 
say 30 per cent. 

If printing is to be maintained as a ten per cent, 
business, it is therefore obviously necessary to earn 15 
per cent, in good times to balance the lean years, which 
come about once in so often. We ought to clear 15 per 
cent, in good times, but we don't, and putting the bad 
and good together, and making all reasonable allow- 
ances, I am forced back to the conclusion, expressed 
on another page, that about eight per cent, is all that 
can be expected in large plants, though printers opera- 
ting specialties may at times make much more. But it 
requires a complete system of bookkeeping, extending 
over a period of years, to disclose all these things. Ob- 
servation suggests that two-thirds of the firms in the 
printing business do not know- what they are making — 
most of them guess at it, and guess too much. 

We all know printers who keep their wage accounts 
all in one. Above it will be noted that wages pertain- 
ing to the building are lumped with building expenses, 
as they are really a part of rent, while office wages are 
separated from the officers' salaries, and the commis- 
sions paid from these. All discounts are also subjects 
of separate entry in the statement, so that their total 
is not lost sight of. 

We have found it a good plan to provide sinking 
funds for all large items of debt to be met later. If 
a bank loan is made to enable cash to be paid for a 
large new machine, a sinking fund is set aside, as- 
sumed to be from the earnings of that machine, to pay 
its own cost and take up the loan at maturity. This 

230 



OFFICE MANAGEMENT AND KEEPING OF ACCOUNTS 

prohibits the money's being spent for other things 
through inadvertence. 

The carrying of complete lists of bills and accounts 
receivable with the half yearly statement permits in- 
spection of important details of the assets, and is a 
check against any carrying of a poor account as an 
asset, when it may not be worth 50 per cent, of its 
face. 

Giving credit to customers always involves some 
losses, and the Charles Francis Press has had its share. 
We find it necessary to charge off fully one per cent, a 
year to bad debts. In the case of publications, how- 
ever, it is sometimes possible to save a good deal of 
a poor account by nursing it, and carrying the debtor. 
If a publication "gets into us" for more debt than it 
can pay, I always demand a complete expose of its 
financial condition. If it appears to have earning 
power I may then nurse the account, and extend fur- 
ther credit, under condition of a percentage being 
added every month toward wiping out the old account. 
This is decidedly more agreeable than forcing a con- 
cern into bankruptcy. 

Once we nursed a publication for five years, and re- 
duced the sum due us from over $5,000 to about $2,500, 
when it went to the wall. 

The studying of one's accounts, and consideration of 
where the money goes, often makes it possible to see 
a saving that would be undiscovered in a jumble of ac- 
counts. When in 13th street we realized that we were 
paying a very high rate for insurance, and introduced 
improvement after improvement in the plant, ending 
in a monthly fire drill, which showed we could empty 

231 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

the building in less than two minutes, which we did 
when a real fire alarm came. By such means we suc- 
ceeded in reducing the rate from $2.25 to .78 per 
$100. 

In opening the books of a printery, the printer re- 
quires to consider his problem, and fit his books to 
what he is trying to do. We find it best to wholly sep- 
arate the accounts of the printing and binding. The 
Waverly Bindery was started as a separate company, 
and kept separate until its earnings warranted its 
being amalgamated, when the Charles Francis Press 
took over all its stock. The composing room, press- 
room and stock room also have separate accounts. This 
appears fundamentally necessary, in order to be sure 
that the leakages are promptly found and stopped, and 
that one department is not running at a loss and living 
off the others. An office doing both publications and 
job work in any quantity does well to separate the ac- 
counts, else how can it be sure which is paying the 
profit, if any? These things appear so fundamental 
as to be hardly worth mentioning, yet for this very 
reason they are sometimes overlooked. 

It is one of the prime duties of the office to see that 
the bills are collected. A printer should not be ex- 
pected to give long credits; that is, supplying capital 
to customers. They should have enough time to be 
able to look over and check up the work as satisfactory, 
but that is all. The common plan of paying on the 
10th of the following month for all the work of the 
month is enough credit to give anyone. If a customer 
does not come to time, there should be no hesitancy 
in promptly and politely demanding the money, let- 

232 



OFFICE MANAGEMENT AND KEEPING OF ACCOUNTS 

ting him know that you require it regularly on the 
dates agreed. Most losses grow out of easiness as to 
credits and extension of time. They can be kept down 
by close collecting. 

A printing plant doing a business of $40,000 a month 
is out $40,000 of cash if it gives an extra month of 
credit. The interest on this $40,000 will pay dividends 
on $40,000 of stock; the business is therefore perma- 
nently robbed of $40,000. The credits of the Charles 
Francis Press run from $40,000 to $75,000, or the 
equivalent of from three to six weeks' production. Ex- 
cept as this is offset by bills payable, it is virtually cash 
capital loaned to customers. In a business which is 
run on so close a margin as printing it is necessary to 
guard against such waste. 

Another duty of the business office is to watch the 
progress of the work, and see to it that it goes out in 
time, and in good shape, and that the customer is sat- 
isfied. This will never be done right if left to chance. 
It must be the business of one man to follow up the 
work, oversee it and supply deficiencies where noted. 
Printing is a complicated business, and a job involv- 
ing composition, presswork, paper, electrotyping, en- 
graving and binding may be handled right in each of 
these six departments, and yet be a failure because of 
some lack between the departments. It is the business 
of the office to keep all departments working harmoni- 
ously, and not only find work to keep them busy, but 
watch each job individually, and keep it moving. 
Otherwise a particular job is likely to be stalled in some 
department and stay there until the customer kicks 
for its delivery. 

233 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The only way to make sure that work does not lapse 
at some point is to make somebody responsible for its 
progress, and to arrange for such reports to the office 
that "hold-ups" may receive instant attention. Each 
man in a shop has his individual responsibility, and 
cannot be held for things outside of that. Publications 
once set running smoothly are apt to keep on, because 
everything moves by set dates, but miscellaneous work 
may reach the pressroom and come to a full stop be- 
cause nobody has provided the paper ; and unless there 
is a system to guard against such things and remedy 
them when they happen, they are sure to be of fre- 
quent occurrence. Nothing but eternal vigilance will 
keep all the work in a printery moving properly all 
the time. 

The office force is there to serve customers, and it 
fails of its purpose in just so far as it fails to satisfy 
all. The customer judges of the shop through the 
office, and by the people with whom he comes in imme- 
diate contact. Courtesy and an evident desire to please 
go a long way toward making things run smoothly; 
they cost less than anything else that is offered the 
customer. No matter what the worries, a smile should 
be reserved for every customer, and it should be made 
apparent to him that he is welcome, and that his pat- 
ronage is valued. 



234 



Managing a Composing Room 

IN managing the mechanical or productive depart- 
ments of a printing plant, the composing room is of 
prime importance. Here the work starts, and has 
to be handled with an understanding of all that comes 
afterward. In small and medium-sized offices the fore- 
man of the composing room is of necessity the fore- 
man of the whole shop ; in large plants he comes near 
being a superintendent, because he controls and guides 
the work going to the electrotyper, the pressman or 
the binder, all of whom have to lean on him to obtain 
harmony of action. He should be a man of excellent 
executive ability. 

But whether the composing room be large or small, 
its foreman must have a head and be a real manager 
if it is going to prove profitable. Judgment and man- 
agement are called for all the time, on every job, and at 
every stage of its production. Only general rules can be 
laid down — their application calls for intelligence, ex- 
perience and brains. Common sense must be exercised. 

The best plan is to hire the best man you can secure 
— not necessarily the man with a record in such capac- 
ity, but the man with the right ability whom you can 
train to handle the work in your way — and give him 
general instructions as to principles, and what you ex- 
pect him to accomplish. The proprietor who is not 
an all-around practical printer requires to have a fore- 
man who is thorough on the mechanical side, as he 
cannot train one. A good business man can make a 
success of a printing business if he have a foreman 

235 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

to whom he can leave the entire detail of production, 
and know that it will be handled with judgment and 
economy. Having started a new foreman right, let 
him have full power, and work out his own detail in 
his own way. The consideration of his problems will 
teach him to think, and you want him to think out the 
routine and minor detail which you have not time to 
consider. If the owner or a general superintendent 
interferes with the management of the composing room 
the chances are that he hinders rather than helps, cre- 
ating a conflict of authority that tends to paralyze 
results. 

When I was a foreman and manager for others, I 
always insisted on being given complete control, that 
directions to me should be given in the office, and that 
the proprietor refrain from giving orders direct to the 
men. I have gone so far as to resign, put on my coat 
and hat, and start out when a proprietor violated his 
understanding with me and went over my head, giving 
personal instructions in the composing room. I felt 
that I could not be responsible for results unless I had 
full control. 

In one's own business it appears a mistake to try 
to watch the detail, the only smooth-working method 
being to leave all that to the man put in charge. One 
should not hesitate to advise a foreman that his course 
in such and such a matter seems questionable; but it 
may appear on conference that he had good reasons 
not apparent to the employer. But the instant the em- 
ployer goes over the foreman's head to the workman, 
that instant the foreman's authority with the men is 
weakened, and they try to keep next to "the boss." 

236 



MANAGING A COMPOSING ROOM 

Lack of harmony creeps in and work is sure to be 
handled wastefully. 

It is better to have a second-class foreman in com- 
plete control than to have a first-class foreman divid- 
ing the control with the head of the house. The good 
foreman must be more than a good printer; he must 
have executive ability, be able to lay out and plan his 
work, use the men under him to the best advantage, 
and keep everything moving systematically. He must 
be able to guide his men rather than drive them. He 
must lead and train them to work with him and with 
each other, and not to make individual records, least of 
all encourage opposition amongst them. 

To err is human, and perfection cannot be expected 
of either foremen or assistant foremen, or anybody 
else. Allowances must be made for the human element, 
which is temperamental, and cannot be moved with 
the precision of a machine. A man-made machine be- 
comes dependable within its limitations because it can 
be relied on to do the same thing every time under the 
same conditions; it has been planned and worked out 
harmoniously to an end. But human machinery, though 
far superior to iron and steel machinery, is yet open 
to human errors, and by its very nature never does the 
same thing in exactly the same way. 

Men and women in a manufacturing plant must be 
considered and managed as human beings, with the 
same aspirations, hopes, likes and dislikes as you and 
I feel. If they are handled and treated and valued 
like iron and steel machines, with no recognition of 
their higher qualities and feelings, they will lose in- 
terest, and work like slaves instead of free men. It is 

237 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

therefore of prime importance that a manager have 
a kindly feeling toward every human being under him. 
The boys and girls at work are just as interesting and 
lovable as your own sons and daughters, and deserve 
as careful treatment and consideration. The mature 
men and women in the shop and the counting room are 
flesh and blood, made in the image that we all revere, 
whatever our respective creeds, and no permanent suc- 
cess can be had in a shop where these things are for- 
gotten, and the work-people are treated as if they were 
not as good as anybody else, and as important to the 
ultimate welfare of the whole establishment. 

Every employer wants foremen who get results, but 
the foremen and managers who get results by driving 
the help like dead machines are not desirable in the 
long run. If they are to be permanently valuable they 
must learn to govern by kindness and not by brute 
force. Every employee must be made to feel that he is 
liked, that he is wanted, and that he is valued for what 
he is ; when he makes errors they should be called to his 
attention in a helpful way, and not by the scolding or 
fault-finding method. 

The principle of harmony, which brings results in 
the direction of a great orchestra, is also the principle 
that gets results desirable from human machinery. 
When the foreman and all his force operate in cheerful 
harmony they put the work behind them with an alac- 
rity that is at times little short of wonderful. 

Every employer finds it necessary to work with his 
foremen and heads of departments, just as they require 
to work with their men. All are human, working for 
a common end, to make the business successful, and 

238 



MANAGING A COMPOSING ROOM 

yield each one a good living. The head of the concern 
is limited to the best material he can find or train to 
work in harmony with his ideas. Just so the several 
foremen and heads must learn to work together har- 
moniously, and to train the men under them to move 
according to the same principles. 

Esprit du corps is a French expression worthy of 
cultivation. It means the patriotic and harmonious 
spirit of the corps or body of men associated for a given 
purpose. The foreman who knows his trade and can 
work up the right spirit of unity among men is the 
only one who will be reported in the end as having 
"made good." 

The first essential of a composing room is plenty of 
material systematically arranged. The leading manu- 
facturers of printers' supplies have done a commend- 
able work in recent years by developing more conven- 
iences making for efficiency in the composing room. 
They have very properly urged the trade to use more 
furniture, and carry larger stocks of leads, slugs, rules, 
spacing material, etc. Time is much more costly than 
material. We have all seen composing rooms in which 
the lack of $100 worth of furniture, reglet, chases, and 
spacing material has involved a time waste of easily 
$10 to $25 a week, and the owner seemingly oblivious 
to the fact. 

The slogan "Every alley a composing room" has my 
hearty commendation and endorsement. The principle 
involved is to stop the compositors from running around 
looking for what should be at their fingers' ends. It is 
better to have a ton more of pica quads in stock than 
are ever used at one time, than it is to have one com- 

239 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

positor wandering around among quad boxes picking 
up enough for the job in hand. The quads represent 
about $400 of capital, costing $24 a year or the equiva- 
lent of less than one hour a week of a compositor's 
time. The principle involved is that the material shall 
be always at hand. The efficient manager will see to 
it that the men have plenty to work with all the time, 
and that distribution of hand-set material is so sys- 
tematic as never to block the production of the compos- 
ing room. 

The new system of non-distribution, which is being 
accomplished successfully in many newspaper offices, 
I am confident will be more and more employed in the 
large book and job establishments. The linotype has 
taught us the convenience of remelting rather than dis- 
tributing, and since the monotype developed as a caster 
of slugs, rules, leads, quads, etc., all in linotype metal, 
it has become possible to sweep entire jobs off the stone 
into the melting pot, and to depend on the caster for 
more sorts and spacing material. There must be a 
steady development of the non-distribution system, and 
an increased use of type and spacing-material casters 
in the larger printing plants. 

In arranging the frames, cabinets, stands, racks, 
stones, etc., of the composing room, the good foreman 
will bear in mind that the modern composing room is 
just as much a make-up or imposition room. There are 
no longer large forces of hand compositors as in the old 
days. Now the composition comes mostly from the 
machines, and a row of linotypes, with perhaps a few 
monotypes or typecasters, is depended upon ±or the 
bulk of the composition. 

240 




A PRINT SHOP OF ANTWERP 250 YEARS AGO 




PART OF A MODERN COMPOSING ROOM 



MANAGING A COMPOSING ROOM 

The proper handling of composing machines is a 
large subject by itself, and worthy of an entire book. 
It begins with the preparation of the copy, which is 
usually lax. Wherever possible the copy should be all 
gone over by one proofreader before it is delivered to 
the machines, to see that it is in good shape and uni- 
form in style. It is much cheaper to make the style on 
the copy than on the proof. 

The rule for proper editing of copy before it goes to 
the machines is largely "honored in the breach." Edi- 
tors are prone to sending in large quantities of copy, 
with general instructions that it is all right, and a 
demand that a proof be forthcoming in a few hours. 
This can be done and is done right along, but it makes 
for lost time and greater expense farther down the line 
when the time comes for corrections. 

Every careful composing room foreman tries to main- 
tain an office style, and have the proofroom adhere to 
such a style. Some customers insist on a style of their 
own, to be followed out regardless of whether their 
copy is or is not prepared in that style. The making 
of a separate style for a dozen different publications is 
a source of endless nuisance and time-wasting in the 
printing office. The best results are obtained when 
the editors of a publication accept the style of an office, 
and of the generality of other publications from that 
office. For instance, if the Standard Dictionary be 
used as a basis of style, and each new customer asked 
to accept that style, all work will proceed more har- 
moniously and at less cost than if some customer de- 
mand that Webster be followed and another have a 
preference for old Worcester spellings, and yet another 

241 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

declare — as one prominent publisher did — "all hyphens 
are a nuisance ; don't put any in my work except where 
you divide a word at the end of a line/' 

In the Charles Francis Press the question of compo- 
sition style has settled itself in a somewhat unusual 
way. The linotype operators seldom are changed. The 
same men handle the copy year after year, and thus 
each one of them knows all the styles of the publishers 
served, quite as well as the head of the proofroom, and 
thus very few lines ever have to be reset to preserve 
style. 

The product of the linotype machine goes on the gal- 
leys, which must be convenient to the place of make-up. 
Each composing room foreman must study his prob- 
lems, and arrange things so that steps are saved, while 
the work moves continuously forward from the battery 
of composing machines to the pressroom or electrotype 
foundry. No rules can be laid down for such arrange- 
ments. Each office is a separate problem. It is pos- 
sible, however, for a foreman to improve his layout by 
studying the layouts in other printeries, and any fore- 
man of any other office is always welcome to come into 
the Charles Francis Press and study the layout of the 
material, and utilize any ideas he finds that may assist 
his own problems. 

There must always be quantities of type for hand 
composition in every composing room. We cannot en- 
tirely dispense with hand-set type, but we can render 
it more available for economical use by buying or cast- 
ing up large fonts, and storing in cases with large boxes, 
which do not involve much fingering and feeling to get 
hold of the type. To me it is marvellous that such a 

242 



MANAGING A COMPOSING ROOM 

simple cause of time-waste as the small type-box should 
be so prevalent. The two-thirds case and the triple 
case each always was an abomination, while the laying 
of several fonts in one case is an invention worthy of 
the "devil." It is also a mistake to crowd things so 
that compositors are virtually obliged to set much dis- 
play out of cases high up in a cabinet or close to the 
floor. 

The whole composing room system should be built 
around the idea of economizing the men's time. One 
of the worst time-wasters is picking sorts. If there 
is any one thing that causes more profanity in 
a printing office than hunting around for sorts to get 
out a job, it is putting to press a job that has been 
picked, and wondering whether all the missing sorts 
have got back into the right places. It is the most 
wasteful practice that ever disgraced a printing office. 

There is a good English system of dividing a com- 
posing room into half a dozen or more departments, 
each in charge of a "clicker." This clicker is a sort of 
sub-foreman, who handles the copy of certain jobs, and 
distributes the work between a certain group of men. 
The name is almost unknown in America, but the prin- 
ciple is often followed by placing the management of a 
particular large job, as a catalog or publication, in the 
hands of one compositor, and making him responsible 
for all copy, for the composition being ready on time, 
etc. 

The f oremanship of a composing room handling small 
work is a vastly different proposition from one hand- 
ling large work. When I was in charge of a shop 
handling stationer's work, I found it desirable to first 

243 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

get out the stock for every job, write the job number on 
it, and lay it on a long table near the job presses. The 
job ticket traveled with the job, and when it reached 
the press, the pressman took his form and the stock at 
the same time. This avoided the nuisance of a question 
being raised at the last moment as to the quantity or 
kind of stock, and also insured against keeping a press 
waiting when the form was ready. 

In handling large work, the composing room foreman 
requires to be in close touch with both pressroom and 
bindery, to prevent loss of time between the depart- 
ments. It is easy to waste all the profits on the average 
work by lack of harmony between the departments — 
making the pressroom wait for forms, or by stopping 
the presses for corrections or changes that should be 
foreseen. The make-up man must be familiar with 
what the folders in the bindery can do, and know just 
what folders are expected to handle the work he makes 
up. Here again it is a question of harmony. Unity 
of action induces harmony, and is as essential to suc- 
cessful management as are job-tickets and time-slips, 
and should be impressed upon both heads of depart- 
ments and the working force. It is well to let every 
man know that he is regarded as an important cog in 
the machine, and that if he falls down there will be 
difficulty elsewhere. Thus each one may be taught to 
grasp the idea of his individual responsibility. A suc- 
cessful foreman studies his men, and tries to use them 
for the work for which they have the best natural 
adaptation. A man with a good mathematical mind 
always handles tables to advantage; one who is quick 
and accurate in make-up belongs on the stone ; another 

244 



MANAGING A COMPOSING ROOM 

with artistic taste should be kept on display as far as 
possible, and so on. 

In keeping records of composing room time, the men 
should be encouraged to make their records accurate. 
I have seen a foreman laugh at a man for entering 24 
minutes as his time on a job, instead of an even half 
hour. The man was to be commended ; he was trying to 
make a correct record. In too many offices the men get 
in the habit of averaging their time. If a certain job 
takes five hours, and looks as though it might have been 
done in four, they would put it down four, to avoid 
being criticized for slowness, and charge the other hour 
to something where it would not be noticed. If such 
practices are general, they ruin the value of the time- 
records, and mislead the office in making future esti- 
mates. The workmen should be encouraged to make 
accurate records of their time, and great care exercised 
as to censuring them if a certain job moves slowly. It 
is the foreman's business to find out why it goes slowly, 
or consumes more time than estimated, and not to pro- 
duce conditions that invite men to hide from him the 
details. 

The composing room foreman not only has the hard 
task of starting all the work, and calculating it to reach 
the pressroom so as to keep the presses moving uni- 
formly, but he has to keep down waste or unproductive 
time. The amount of "pottering" that can be done on a 
job after the galleys come from the composing ma- 
chines until the locked form goes to the pressroom is 
enormous. Under modern conditions it costs more to 
make up, read proof, correct, impose, revise, o.k. and 
lock up than it costs to compose the type and put it on 

245 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

the galley. With good management these costs can be 
kept down, but they are there, and no amount of clever 
figuring can get away from them. In every office where 
the cost sheets are kept right, it will be found that this 
is so. Good layout of copy and clear instructions in 
advance, and everlasting vigilance of the foreman will 
help to lower the level of this unproductive time evil, 
but it can never be eliminated. 

I hope I have made it clear that I regard printing 
as a departmental business. The composing room is 
simply the first department, where the system and 
routine must begin right, for it to operate harmoniously 
throughout the entire establishment. 



246 



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UNIQUE SPECIMEN OF A BLIND PRINTER'S 
COMPOSITION 



Securing Profit in Presswork 

SAYS the press salesman, "We'll guarantee that 
press to run 1,800 an hour, day in and day out." 
"Run it on two shifts, sixteen hours a day, six 
days a week, and its product will be 173,000 impres- 
sions." This sounds magnificent, and creates imagina- 
tive visions of the pressfly throwing out sheets of 
bank-notes, all one's own — but like the vision, it can- 
not be realized. 

It is not what a press can produce, but what it does 
produce that determines the profit or loss in the final 
summing up. Running a cylinder at 2,500 an hour 
makes a big stir, but is not necessarily profitable. The 
records show that it takes good management in a press- 
room to keep the cylinders going forty per cent, of the 
time, and that there is no such thing as one hundred 
per cent, production. The common custom of figuring 
a thousand an hour for the presses is as profitless as 
tossing money out of the window to see if it will come 
back. 

There is no doubt as to good cylinders being able to 
stand 1,800 an hour speed; we have all timed them at 
that figure or better; but in practice, under pressroom 
conditions they will not average half this production. 

Here are actual records, from the Charles Francis 
Press, made with good machines, under modern sur- 
roundings, with the best men that could be hired : 

Six-months' record of 16 cylinders, 15,050,323 im- 
pressions; weekly average 578,858; average (when 
manned), 615 impressions per hour. 

247 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The average for two and a half years, divided into 
six-month periods, showed the following results re- 
spectively, 648, 566, 509, 546 and 614 impressions per 
hour. 

Two more cylinders were then added, and the same 
time divided into six-month periods, showed 614, 800, 
811, 644, 622 and 664 impressions per hour. 

The cylinder plant was then increased to 23 ma- 
chines, and with the same time period, divided as be- 
fore, showed 682, 711, 660, 664, 821, 700, 682, 711 and 
660 impressions per hour. 

One of the above high records, over 800, was made 
under stress of trying to show the management what 
the men could do working eight hours, just after we 
left off running nine hours. For a little while they 
were able to produce as much in an eight-hour day as 
they had in nine hours. It took three and a half years 
of management for us to get our record of cylinder 
presswork up to 700 an hour average, and during one 
period of six months it was but a shade over 500. The 
Universal and Gordon presses did not produce quite as 
much as the cylinders, 650 an hour being their normal 
average of impressions. 

It must be borne in mind that the time charged 
against these presses was the hours when a paid crew 
of men were there drawing wages to run them. If they 
ran two shifts, 16 hours was charged; if men were 
laid off, no time was charged against their machines. 
It is obvious that in a smaller pressroom there would 
have been more waste, and lower totals scored. It 
should also be noted that sixty per cent, of the work 
in this pressroom was publications, with good long 

248 



SECURING PROFIT IN PRESSWORK 

runs, so that the small figures cannot be charged to a 
large amount of make-ready. 

I do not believe that the average printing office, with 
five cylinders, running mixed work, can average to pro- 
duce over 600 impressions per hour on its cylinders, 
and it is safer to estimate on a basis of 550 production. 

Other pressroom matters often left out of estimates 
are shown by our records to be: 

Electric light and power cost, 2y 8 per cent, of output. 

Rent cost, 3 per cent, of output. 

Roller cost, 1/3 per cent, of output. 

Ink cost, normal times, Z]/ 2 per cent, of output. 

The above figures are made for sixty per cent. 
40x60 presses. 

At war prices the item of ink may run over 5 per 
cent, of the pressroom product, and under most favor- 
able circumstances I have been able to bring it down 
to 2 J4 per cent. ; under unfavorable conditions one year 
it cost nearly five per cent. This was because we were 
buying too heavy inks. 

What I wish to emphasize by these figures is that the 
printer in estimating should calculate that his cylinders 
will produce not over 5,000 impressions per day 
of eight hours, and that his fixed cost for light, power, 
rent, rollers and ink should be figured as at least ten 
per cent, of the production in a large pressroom, and 
probably 15 per cent, or more in smaller pressrooms. 
The printer who knows these things will not be apt to 
estimate below cost, no matter what cost system he 
employs. If a large cylinder press costs $5,000, and is 
to pay for itself in ten years, it must earn $300 interest 
and $500 sinking fund, or $800 a year. If it is manned 

249 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

200 full days a year, that is $4 a day. If the wages to 
keep it manned are $7 a day, and if the ten per cent, 
of product (to pay for rent, light, power, ink and 
rollers) be placed at $2 a day, and if the overhead of 
the establishment figures $4 more, it obviously costs 
$17 a day to run that cylinder machine, and if the 
product of 5,000 impressions is sold at $20, or $4 per 
1,000, it yields only a small return. 

The trouble with printers who sell the product of a 
large cylinder at $2.50 or $3 per thousand impressions 
is that they calculate they are going to get 1,000 sheets 
an hour out of the press, which in practice they never 
can do for any length of time. A hen should lay an egg 
every day, but she doesn't, and it is just the same way 
with a press ; if you get 200 days' work out of it in a 
year you are doing well, and if you get 700 sheets an 
hour during those 200 days you are also doing well. 
There are printers who laugh at the way their wives 
figure on the profits they are going to get out of a small 
hennery, and who are just as blind when they get to 
estimating on a large job of presswork that they are 
anxious to produce. 

In a well-managed pressroom having a good cylinder 
equipment, and good trade, the cylinders are printing 
not over 40 per cent, of the time, and occupied by make- 
ready 20 per cent, of the time, while the other 40 per 
cent, is idle time. No printer can get away from these 
conditions by reason of long runs, for the great big 
runs now go to the web machines, which do the work 
quicker and cheaper. And no printer can rightfully 
figure that with feeding machines he can overcome 
these conditions. The automatic feeder saves some- 

250 






SECURING PROFIT IN PRESSWORK 

thing in wages, and something in spoilage (which is 
usually the customer's gain), but my records do not 
show any increase of production by reason of automatic 
feeders. 

Just here I can almost see some clever fellow turning 
to his pressroom records, and saying, "Why, we do 
much better than that; this press-run of 10,000 was 
put through in eight hours, and this of 25,000 in three 
days' actual running." Such men never figure on the 
slow runs. Before me is a sheet of one week's produc- 
tion in the cylinder pressroom of the Charles Francis 
Press. It shows cylinders that recorded, in half days 
of four hours, 4,200, 4,700, 4,800 and 4,500 impres- 
sions ; but it also shows one press that had four and a 
half days of make-ready and less than 6,000 production 
for the week, and another press that was broken down 
three days, and on Saturday (a half day) 3,900 sheets 
came through four presses and the other twenty ma- 
chines were idle. It is not running time accomplished 
on a particular job that determines cost, but average 
production. 

This is our method of keeping press production: 

Partial Press Record 

Press No. 1.— Feb. 20. 

8 a.m.: Smith's Weekly, Make-ready. 

Noon: Smith's Weekly, 2,100. 

6 p.m.: Smith's Weekly, 5,200. 
Press No. 2. 

8 a.m.: Inland Wrappers, 4,200. 

Noon: Inland Wrappers, 5,100. 

6 p.m.: R. of R., Make-ready. 
251 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

Press No. 3. 

8 a.m. : Board Health Cir., 9,000. 

Noon : Waiting for sheets. 

6 p.m. : Board Health Cir., 12,100. 
Press No. 1.— Feb. 21. 

8 a.m. : Smith's Weekly, 10,300. ' 

Noon: Smith's Weekly, 12,500. 

6 p.m.: Standing. 
Press No. 2. 

8 a.m.: R. of R., Make-ready. 

Noon: R. of R„ 1,200. 

6 p.m.: R. of R., 4,300. 
Press No. 3. 

8 a.m. : Board Health Cir., 16,000. 

Noon : Standing. 

6 p.m.: Standing. 

The record above of press No. 1, showing 5,200 of 
Smith's Weekly off at 6 o'clock Feb. 20, and 10,300 off 
at 8 next morning, is the very simple method used to 
indicate night runs. A pressroom record such as the 
above takes very little time to keep, and serves many 
useful purposes. The information is gathered right 
from the presses by a young man and brought to the 
office, morning, noon and night, and if a customer 
wants to know when his job will be off, it is not neces- 
sary to go into the pressroom to enquire, for the prog- 
ress of the job is evident from this record in the office. 
This record is also quite as efficient as an indicator 
showing in the office what presses are running and 
what are idle. Every pressman in the shop knows that 
his product is reported on the manager's desk three 

252 



SECURING PROFIT IN PRESSWORK 

times daily, and that slow work on his part is seen and 
noted. This record also serves as a basis for obtaining 
total production and average production for the month, 
and for cost records of actual performance. It is both 
the simplest and most complete record we have been 
able to devise, and is adapted to either a large or small 
pressroom. 

The record for an entire week is kept on one large 
sheet about 24x36, in the office. When the sheet has 
served its purpose, and the information is all trans- 
ferred to the books, it is laid aside. One sheet is in 
active use each week. 

Records of this sort have proved to us: 1. That 
jobbers and cylinders produce 600 to 700 an hour under 
good conditions, and no more on the average. 2. That 
web machines, with a capacity four times that of cylin- 
der machines, rarely produce twice as many impres- 
sions in a six-month period. The web is useful for 
getting out several folded signatures rapidly, but one 
cannot make-ready on it any faster than on a slow 
press, and in practice one can never find the work to 
keep a web press going most of the time. The web 
machines and various rapid special presses are valued 
for their ability to handle large work within a small 
space so as to make quick delivery and good service to 
the customer, but rarely do they afford much economy in 
manufacture, as measured by the thousand impres- 
sions, until the 100,000 mark is attained. As a matter 
of fact it has been found advantageous by us to run 
publications of from 65,000 upwards on a web, because 
some web machine was idle and the cylinders busy on 
the days when such publications went to press. This 

253 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

procedure operated to balance the pressroom — that is, 
make work uniform on the different classes of ma- 
chines. Normally a run of 75,000 or 80,000 is best done 
on cylinders, but above 100,000 the web machine is 
essential to economical production. 

It is a common saying among the larger printers 
that the money is made in the pressroom. The com- 
posing room is too often run at cost in order to get 
work to keep the presses busy, for the heavy invest- 
ment in expensive presses must be kept active, or loss 
instead of profit may result. A pressroom of ten cylin- 
ders may just pay its running expenses with a produc- 
tion of 40,000 sheets a day, but as its capacity is 50,000 
sheets, and on a double shift can be made to produce 
100,000 sheets a day, with the same overhead, it is 
obvious that making money involves keeping the press- 
room full of work. This is the condition that induces 
so many printers to take "fillers" to occupy the gaps 
of idle time on their machines — a very pernicious prac- 
tice which tends to lower the prices on all classes of 
presswork. 

It costs $17 a day to run a large cylinder for eight 
hours, as we have seen, but if a press crew have to be 
there two days in the week, when there are no forms, 
the cost is much the same, and thus the temptation 
arises to take a job at about two-thirds the normal price 
to fill in this idle time. The plan would be feasible but 
for one thing: this method steals a good job from a 
neighboring printer, who then has a gap in his press- 
room and steals back a paying job from the first printer. 
So both these competing printers have as much idle 
time as before, and each is doing one job at less than 

254 



SECURING PROFIT IN PRESSWORK 

the fair price. The only safe rule is to insist on a fair 
profit on every job or else leave it alone. 

Get all you can out of your pressroom legitimately, 
but never cut prices to keep the cylinders turning. Do 
not be in a great hurry to buy more machinery when 
you are rushed with work; be willing to feed a little 
presswork to the office across the street at times, so 
they may not be tempted to steal your trade. When all 
the presses in your locality are busy most of the time 
and you are crowded to produce, that is the time to buy 
a new press. 

The pressroom foreman requires to keep in close 
touch with the composing room head from whom he 
receives the work. He needs to know just when such 
forms will be in the pressroom, to have the presses and 
crew ready for them. A little miscalculation not only 
delays work but increases costs. The responsibility of 
a large pressroom is great, where thousands of dollars' 
worth of paper are going through the machines, and 
slight errors may make heavy spoilage. The element 
of time is of more and more importance, and nearly 
all large jobs are now required on a schedule. 

By keeping before him on one sheet a record of the 
coming work, the pressroom foreman can lay his plans 
accurately. By keeping in right touch with the stock- 
room he will know that the paper for each job is avail- 
able, before the make-ready is completed. He will also 
keep his eyes open for emergencies, as when the cus- 
tomer telephones in and adds a few thousand to his 
order while it is on the press. It is then necessary to 
see that the extra paper is on hand in time to prevent 
lifting the form. 

255 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

Instead of dodging night shifts, which involve higher 
pay to the workmen, the good manager now courts them 
in the pressrooms of the larger cities, as New York, 
Chicago, etc., realizing that the overhead charges are 
reduced to a greater extent. Working men time-and-a- 
half is a losing game all around, but with two shifts of 
men and one overhead charge, there is an economy. It 
is a fatal blunder to try to increase production by 
speeding up the presses, thus knocking them to pieces 
before their normal time. It is not the speed of run- 
ning but the quickness of make-ready and avoidance 
of small delays and idle time that determines output 
in the pressroom. 

Every customer who holds up a press should be 
charged with the idle time, but this is a rule very dif- 
ficult of enforcement, because the customer is almost 
sure to think it unfair. But it is just as proper as the 
plumber's charge for coming to look at a job and going 
back to the shop. The best way is to make prices high 
enough to permit a certain amount of concession re- 
garding delays, and to be careful to notify customers 
in writing, at the time of beginning a contract, that 
delays created by them will involve costs of so much 
per hour. When such delays come about it should be 
somebody's business to telephone the customer : "Press 
No. 4 is being held up by you, with crew waiting at 
your expense, costing you $2.50 per hour." This will 
operate to reduce such delay, and also cause the cus- 
tomer to recognize that it is his fault, not yours. 

If a proof or a delivery is promised at a certain hour, 
and because of delays it becomes apparent that the 
promise cannot be kept, the customer should be notified 

256 



SECURING PROFIT IN PRESSWORK 

at once, in order that his plans may be shaped accord- 
ingly. And the system should provide automatically 
for such notification, so that it will surely be done in 
all cases. 

Since the time of a large press is worth as much as 
the time of the men who run it, there is double reason 
for watching and keeping down time in make-ready. 
Overlays can be cut in advance, and various little 
things can be done to save the time of the machine. By 
washing rollers before or after hours, by extra care in 
having the proper temperature at starting time in the 
morning, by thinking ahead, discovering what will 
have to be done for the coming form, and getting every- 
thing there ahead of the form, press time can be 
saved. A pressman with a good head for planning 
his work is often worth ten per cent, more than an 
equally capable workman who does not think and plan 
ahead of what he is doing at the moment. 

In the old days we used to be bothered almost to dis- 
traction at times with the electricity in the paper. It 
is now better understood, and there are devices for dis- 
sipating the charge when it occurs. I recollect years 
ago at Louisville, Ky., when we used to receive paper 
by boat, it would often come in very cold, and we would 
try to run it in a dry pressroom ; frequently it would be 
stuck together as tight as if dipped in molasses. Grad- 
ually we learned that moisture was a conductor, and 
that by making the air steamy and having the floor 
wet, the electric balance would be restored so that the 
paper could be handled. The condition still has to be 
watched, especially in the smaller pressrooms, where 
ideal conditions do not prevail. The friction employed 

257 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

in an automatic feeder often generates a charge of 
electricity in the paper, on the same principle as in a 
frictional electric machine or the rubbing of a cat's 
back. As there are now numerous well-known methods 
for getting rid of the electric charge, it has almost 
ceased to be an annoying factor in the pressroom. 

The presswork of a small office presents problems 
of a somewhat different character from those of the 
large shop. Suppose we have in consideration a plant 
of a few small Gordons, two half-medium Universals, 
a pony and two larger cylinders. Such a plant is almost 
certain to be in a rented building, dependent on some 
one else for heat, and often for power. Electric power 
is usually the best, but if there is also a good gas engine 
in the place, it prevents the presses being hung up if 
the current fails. It is important to watch the heat, 
which is apt to be scanty the first hour in the morning, 
in which case it is best to pay the engineer to get at the 
furnace early in the morning, avoiding a loss of an 
hour or half an hour on most of the presses. 

It pays to have a system, even in such a small plant. 
Results will depend mainly on the good head and re- 
sources of the foreman, who sees that the forms keep 
coming uniformly, and that the stock is there with the 
form. One competent pressman, one assistant who can 
make ready, and feeders enough to man the presses, 
can operate such a pressroom. The pressman has to 
adapt his work to his facilities all the time. If the large 
cylinders are busy and the pony idle, he will split some 
forms to keep the pony busy. If there is color work in 
short runs, he may prefer to do it in small forms on the 
Universals rather than on the cylinders, the loss in 

258 



SECURING PROFIT IN PRESSWORK 

doubling impressions being compensated for by less 
cost of operating press, easier register, etc. If the 
jobbers are crowded and the cylinders idle, he will try 
to double up on small forms and run them on the cylin- 
ders, all the time striving to get the most out of the 
facilities he has. 

In the small office it is more difficult to keep things 
running uniformly than in a large plant, hence it is 
more important to have "all-around" printers, men who 
can set type, make-up, feed press, cut overlays, do any- 
thing required of them. Such men are scarce, but they 
can be trained, and it is usually easier to make a fair 
assistant pressman out of a compositor, than to make a 
typesetter out of a pressman. A man who can do noth- 
ing but run a press is of reduced value in a small plant. 

Whatever the size of the pressroom, the foreman 
needs to know something of binding, and to keep in 
touch with the work that goes to the bindery. Other- 
wise forms will be made up in a way that that particu- 
lar binder cannot fold with his machinery, or the guide 
edges will not be marked to assist him in correct fold- 
ing, and minor differences will constantly arise between 
pressroom and bindery, to the loss of the house. 

It is not honest to deliver short count to a customer, 
and the printer who practices it on the theory that it 
will never be noticed is sure to reap what he sows some 
time. I recollect a customer who used to order 15,000 
photograph slips of us monthly. He disappeared for 
three months and then returned. "Where have you 
been?" I asked. "Trying another printer?" "Yes, he 
did them for less, but I found he gave us only 700 for 
1,000, so here I am again." 

259 



Printing Ink Problems 

BECAUSE ink represents but two to five per cent, 
of the cost of printing, it is all too apt to be 
overlooked in printing estimates, and naturally 
becomes a more or less negligible quantity in the press- 
room. This condition invites not only trouble but con- 
siderable loss. If money is made at all in a printing 
factory, it is commonly in the pressroom, and if there 
are serious difficulties here, the probabilities are that 
no money will be made. 

If there were a few standard grade papers, and if 
the speeds on cylinder and web presses were uniform, 
and if the temperature and moisture in pressrooms did 
not change, and if the ink manufacturer could depend 
on uniform raw materials, the printer could be pretty 
sure of obtaining dependable inks, by clinging to one 
responsible ink house. But with a seemingly endless 
variety of papers, with varying press speeds and print- 
ing surfaces, with alternately dry and humid condi- 
tions in the pressrooms, and ink manufacturers sud- 
denly deprived of half their dependable raw materials, 
difficulties multiply until it is apparent that we are 
asking altogether too much of the ink man by order- 
ing inks recklessly, and then complaining if they do 
not meet our exact wants. No matter how able or 
well disposed he may be to serve the printer, there 
will be some loss in the pressrooms unless an intelli- 
gent pressroom head and an intelligent ink man 
cooperate and keep in close touch to watch each prob- 
lem as it arises. 

260 



PRINTING INK PROBLEMS 

The pressroom foreman should be informed in ad- 
vance of the papers he is to be supplied with, and he 
must be in frequent communication with the ink man, 
and both must be efficient, intelligent and honest, if the 
best results are to be obtained. It is not so much a 
question of saving a quarter of a cent a pound on ink, 
or of matching any color exactly, as it is a question of 
securing continued smooth running, avoiding waste 
time and spoiled stock, especially on colored work. 
These are the things which, if neglected, make the ink 
problem costly. 

The average printer makes his first mistake in being 
too suspicious of his ink manufacturer. Having bought 
a few job lots, recommended by some glib salesman, 
only to learn that they were not adapted to his work, 
he too readily concludes that all ink men are scamps, 
that one cannot tell what an ink is till it is tried on 
the press, and that anyway the whole ink question is a 
nuisance that cannot be solved. 

Now the fact is that ink men are quite as honest as 
printers, and they average as well in intelligence as any 
class of men we come in contact with. But they have 
to deal with an unusual complication of problems, 
little understood, and too many salesmen have there- 
fore formed the habit of letting the printer do the 
talking, thus finding out his prejudices, and catering 
to them, instead of trying to educate the printer to the 
true understanding of conditions in ink manufacture 
and use. 

I am aware that I am ill qualified to clarify this 
situation, and to settle ink problems for all the readers 
of this book. But I shall do my best, and I draw my 

261 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

facts from men who know. For the bulk of the tech- 
nical information in the following I am indebted to Mr. 
Robert W. Hochstetter, vice-president of The Ault & 
Wiborg Company, who has kindly loaned me his knowl- 
edge to assist in a popular statement likely to benefit 
the printer in dealing with ink questions. I would be 
glad to credit other ink men with their share in educat- 
ing me as to inks, but their name is legion, and I can 
hardly separate the facts gleaned from this one and 
that one, so it seems best to thank them generally for 
a variety of information that has assisted me in reduc- 
ing cost and increasing quality in my pressrooms. 

Printing ink is primarily a pigment or dry color, 
which is ground exceedingly fine and mixed with a 
varnish, that it may flow readily and dry quickly on 
paper. In choosing pigments it is necessary to avoid 
those that tend to crystallize, as these will make the 
ink lumpy or gritty and cause the color to rub off when 
dried out. We have been told that black ink is pri- 
marily lampblack and linseed oil, and such it was in 
the early days when printers made their own inks; 
but this is no longer true. Gas black and lampblack 
made by burning dead oil are now commonly employed 
as black pigments, together with a variety of special 
varnishes. 

Gas black (often called carbon black) is formed by 
burning natural gas (which is the vapor of petroleum, 
or the first product blown off an oil well) , and catch- 
ing the soot on a cold surface and quickly scraping it 
off. At one time there was a great surplus of natural 
gas in the United States, but the supply has been 
largely brought under the control of the oil interests 

262 



PRINTING INK PROBLEMS 

and diverted to other purposes. Since it takes 1000 to 
8000 feet of natural gas to make a pound of carbon 
for printing ink, obviously the gas can be put to more 
useful purposes, yielding a larger return in money. 
Especially is this true of cheap newspaper ink. 

Under these conditions there is a tendency to use 
less carbon black, and go back to so-called lamp black, 
which is rather denser, but does not always yield so 
deep a color. 

When it comes to linseed oil for the varnish, the ink 
maker is up against it once more, for the world's 
linseed crop is a reducing quantity. Linseed is identi- 
cal with flaxseed, and flax is being grown less and less, 
as cotton has so much replaced linen, made from flax 
fiber. America has never produced sufficient flaxseed 
to meet the demands of the consumers of linseed oil 
and this deficit was made up by imported flaxseed 
mostly from the Argentine. After the outbreak of the 
war the United States was solely dependent upon its 
own crop. The consequent scarcity of flaxseed brought 
about a great increase in price of linseed oil. Unfor- 
tunately linseed oil can not be easily replaced by sub- 
stitutes and those inks in which it is absolutely neces- 
sary to use linseed varnish had to be correspondingly 
advanced in price. 

Rosin has also advanced in cost owing to increased 
consumption brought about by new uses especially in 
the explosive industry. Rosin oil got a bad name some 
years ago, and manufacturers do not care to use much 
of it. Yet for some purposes it is the best oil, and the 
makers have learned how to counteract some of its dis- 
advantages. 

263 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

With these handicaps in his materials, and a printing- 
public demanding uniform products of several hun- 
dred different sorts, always easy flowing and quick 
drying, is it any wonder that some ink men are gray 
before their time? 

The grinding of ink looks like a simple proposition, 
but it is not, as the coterie of New York printers 
learned who, about 1900, purchased a few ink mills, 
and undertook to grind their own blacks. The stand- 
ard mill has rolls to crush the pigment so fine that no 
grit is discernible. Despite water-cooling, the mill 
heats as it runs, and the longer the grinding the thicker 
the body of the ink will be, so when great fineness is 
attempted the result is sure to be an ink unduly tacky ; 
the inkmaker has to choose between the extremes. 
When ink is ground very fine to remove all grit, it has 
to be thinned to permit it to flow through the fountain, 
and the more it is thinned the less is the depth of color. 
You cannot have all good qualities in one lot of ink any 
more than you can buy a horse that can trot in two 
minutes, draw a five-ton load of coal, be gentle for 
children to drive, and be satisfied with two quarts of 
oats a day. 

The ink man can give you a very dense black ink; 
he can give you a free-flowing ink; he can give you 
one that will work on 175 line screen half-tones; one 
that will not offset ; one that will not pull off the coat- 
ing of the paper, and several other things; but it is 
folly to expect all these qualities in one ink, and a lack 
of understanding of this is the cause of much dissatis- 
faction with ink by printers who ought to know better. 
Sometimes two opposite qualities can be obtained in 

264 



PRINTING INK PROBLEMS 

an ink; for instance it was regarded as a great accom- 
plishment in the ink trade when they were able to 
produce a suitable ink for rotary photogravure work, 
that had to be absolutely free from grit and also to 
flow freely enough to permit a printing speed of 10,000 
an hour. 

When it comes to mixing and working inks, con- 
sistency is the thing sought — an ink just fluid enough 
to flow readily through the press fountain, and not 
sticky enough to tear or flake the paper, which will 
distribute easily, and not fill up the finer spaces in the 
form. If the ink is too thin the work will be muddy; 
if too thick it tends to fill up half-tones. It is stated 
that European pressmen understand this matter of 
consistency, or thin and thick ink, better than we do 
in the United States, and that they will keep varnish 
and dryer on hand, and regulate these details them- 
selves; whereas in America we mostly put these prob- 
lems up to the ink manufacturer, and if an ink does 
not work well, throw it back at him and tell him to 
send us something else. Obviously, if he sends us an 
ink designed to be run in a pressroom at 80 degrees 
temperature, and it is run when the temperature is only 
65 it will not flow freely, or if the temperature is 95 
it will flow too freely. 

Increase of humidity opens the pores of paper, and 
it absorbs more ink ; an ink tried on soft paper on such 
a day will not go as far as on a dry day. On a very 
humid day some papers repel an oily ink, and there 
is also a shrinkage of the paper that is apt to destroy 
close register. Ink dries either by absorption into the 
paper, as in soft stock, or by oxidation, as on hard 

265 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

calendered and coated papers, hence air must be re- 
tained between the sheets of the latter. 

What we call dryer assists oxidation. It is useless to 
apply it in the case of a soft, absorbent paper. When 
there is trouble in drying on a hard stock it is often 
good economy to use a higher priced, strong-colored ink, 
as a less quantity of the ink is placed on the paper, 
hence it dries more quickly. Several mineral salts as- 
sist oxidation and hence drying, as compounds of lead, 
zinc and manganese. The grade of linseed oil also af- 
fects the drying properties. 

Lithographic work requires heavier ink than letter- 
press. It is a mistake to use too heavy inks for letter- 
press ; they cost more and run less freely. Where there 
are large runs for the same character of work, it is best 
to make trial of several different grades, and finding 
the most suitable, make a contract with one ink house 
to supply that as nearly uniform as possible. 

When it comes to colored inks, the troubles of the ink 
man are multiplied almost in the proportion of the num- 
ber of shades and tints on the market. Fifty years ago 
a printing office that had two kinds of red and two 
kinds of blue ink on the shelf was well fitted for color 
printing. Now we do not pretend to enumerate the col- 
ors, and there is a tendency to undertake to match any 
shade or combination of colors. There are two general 
classes of colored printing inks — those based on inor- 
ganic or earthy pigments, as chrome yellow, milori blue, 
and the ochres, umbers and siennas; and the organic, 
or coal tar pigments, which includes the so-called 
lakes or coal tar dye inks. Lakes and coal tar pigment 
inks are made from coal tar dyes which are treated to 

266 



PRINTING INK PROBLEMS 

make them insoluble in water. If this were not the 
case these inks could not be used for out-of-door work. 

One trouble experienced in the printing of color 
forms is the drying of an ink to a different shade from 
what it appeared when freshly put on. Wet ink is al- 
ways brighter than dry ink. When it comes to print- 
ing four colors with a two-color press, great experience 
and judgment are essential, for the first two colors 
must dry before the next two go on wet. A run may 
be started on the second two colors, and look fine while 
the second two colors are wet, and weaken seriously as 
they dry; or it may start with a look of being badly 
blended or contrasted, and come out right when all col- 
ors are dry. The only way to insure results seems to be 
to take proofs of a four-color form under the same con- 
ditions that they will be run, with the identical inks, 
and then wait until all colors are dry, to see if the de- 
sired result is attained. When the right combination of 
colors is thus found, and there is certainty of having 
in quantity the exact inks used on the proof, then only 
is it safe to proceed with a long run of a job in several 
colors. 

Some printers suppose that the inkmaker buys a red, 
a blue, a yellow, a white and a black base substance, 
and secures all his tints by mixing, but this is not so. 
The basic substances are legion, and a modern ink fac- 
tory is a chemical laboratory working on a large scale. 
The inorganic or earthy bases were developed years 
ago, and may be called the "old reliables"; when well 
ground and mixed, they work well, but they do not per- 
mit of the brilliancy and variety of coloring that is to be 
had from the coal tar dye inks. These latter were first 

267 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

introduced as anilines, and had a way of fading out in 
a few weeks, and so got a bad name in the trade. The 
inkmakers sought a better source than aniline, and 
found it in naphthalene, which produces a much more 
permanent color. Later chemical researches resulted in 
the discovery of yet faster colors, based on anthracene, 
which is also distilled from coal tar. 

The printer must not expect these coal tar inks to be 
as permanent as the blacks or chrome colors; the 
brighter an ink is the more apt it is to fade, and the 
printer should not blame the inkmaker because the last- 
ing qualities of delicate and brilliant hues are not equal 
to those of the blacks and ochres. 

In discussing colors with his customer, the printer 
should not claim everything, but tell the truth, which is 
that when striking and brilliant colors are desired nei- 
ther ink man nor printer can guarantee very long ex- 
posure to sun and moisture. When showy effects are de- 
manded, safe for long exposure, as on calendars, it is 
best to depend on the bronzes, or to get a deeper shade 
by running some color twice through the press. 

When the European war cut off the supply of numer- 
ous pigments, the larger ink houses were driven to 
make some provision to meet the condition. One con- 
cern established a very large plant for making coal 
tar dye colors, and not only supplies other ink houses, 
but sells colors to the textile trade. They are now in- 
dependent of European production, and make the para 
colors, lithol red, sola red, etc., besides a line of inter- 
mediates, acids, bronzes and various bases — in short 
everything that goes into printing ink is produced from 
nature's raw materials. 

268 



PRINTING INK PROBLEMS 

Inkmaking has become more and more a chemist's 
business. The variety of colors and ingredients are 
derived from such a variety of sources, and have so 
many different qualities that only an expert is fitted to 
prepare new mixtures and combinations. To illustrate : 
vermilion is a beautiful light red, obtained artificially 
by grinding a mixture of mercury and sulphur, and then 
digesting with potassium hydroxide. (At least so the 
chemists say, as a printer I don't pretend to know.) 
This sulphide of mercury reacts on copper and type 
metal, and on a long run may decompose electros and 
type faces. It follows that only a small quantity can 
be mixed with an ink, though a larger quantity may 
be employed for short runs. A similar condition exists 
with ultramarine, which is unfortunate, because ultra- 
marine is perhaps the most permanent of all blues of 
this particular shade. 

These two instances are given to impress on the 
printer that there are things which the inkmaker can- 
not do for him, or at least cannot do wisely, and that in 
the prevalent state of ignorance among the printing 
craft as to the nature and chemical constituents of ink, 
it is unwise for us to insist on the ink people doing this 
or that, and much better to ask their advice and take 
it. By ignorantly insisting on something the ink man 
cannot consistently do, we only invite some of the 
more careless among them to try and fool us. Many a 
printer has stopped buying of an ink house that told 
him the truth, and gone to buying of another that fibbed 
to him to get in on his trade, only to learn later that the 
goods were unsatisfactory. He has only himself to 
blame, because he invited the condition. 

269 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The colored inks for posters are the lowest priced, 
yet they must be permanent to stand exposure to rain 
and sun. For dark cover papers, non-transparent col- 
ored ink is requisite. Hence the lake inks have proved 
useless for this class of work, as the color of the paper 
shows right through the ink and modifies it. But the 
ink people have given us a line of heavy opaque inks, 
some of which cover even dark-colored stocks remark- 
ably. Obviously, in these instances, the printer's best 
plan is to explain his needs, and leave the solution en- 
tirely to the ink house, taking what they give him, and 
if the house is a large one making its own materials, he 
can be pretty sure he has got the best that is to be had. 

At the time this book goes to press, one of the largest 
ink houses is spending more than $5,000,000 in build- 
ing chemical laboratories and factories that America 
may be independent of other countries for any ingredi- 
ent in the manufacture of inks. Such enterprise de- 
serves the highest praise and encouragement; let us 
hope that future Congresses dabbling with the tariff 
will not hamper business conducted on such broad lines, 
or endanger such heavy investments for the benefit of 
the entire printing trade of the United States. 

In studying economical use of inks, one of the print- 
er's methods is to try one ink, wash up the press, and 
introduce another ink without altering the fountain 
screws. If the maintenance of color requires opening 
the fountain wider it is decided to be a more expensive 
ink; but this is often an erroneous conclusion. If the 
ink that calls for another notch on the fountain be what 
we term a buttery ink, it flows less freely than other 
inks. While it calls for a greater turn of the fountain 

270" 



PRINTING INK PROBLEMS 

roll, it may be that a pound goes exactly as far or even 
farther than the more free-flowing ink. The only sure 
way of comparing the covering qualities of two differ- 
ent inks is to weigh the ink carefully and run it on a 
given job, then change to the other ink with which com- 
parison is desired, and run the same number of pounds 
and see if the same number of sheets of the same form 
are produced. 

We are apt to be too finical about the matching of 
ink. It is well to inform customers in advance that 
matching inks exactly costs more money, while an ap- 
proximate match is just as good and keeps down the 
cost. So many conditions affect the reproduction of an 
exact shade, that it is well to avoid this wherever pos- 
sible. Few of us can hope to match engraver's proofs 
or color-plates, because the conditions of printing in 
long runs on cylinders are so different from those on a 
proof press. 

Money cannot be made in the pressroom if both cus- 
tomer and workmen are allowed to dabble in ink no- 
tions to the limit. The best plan seems to be to go to an 
ink house that commands your confidence, place the re- 
sponsibility on them, and act on their advice. Their 
experts knoiv a vast number of things that we printers 
only guess at. It seems wisest to buy their knowledge 
with their goods. 

A conscientious ink man is not satisfied with merely 
making a sale. He is vitally interested in knowing that 
the ink he has sold is the best for that particular job 
which can be made. The conditions under which that 
job is run must be familiar to him, for he takes pride 
in knowing that his ink enabled the printer to run the 

271 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

job with .the least waste of time and paper, and that 
there has not been a kick from the customer who re- 
ceived the job, as it answered all his requirements. The 
ink man who has earned his customer's confidence by 
giving good service wins respect and is welcomed by 
the printer, while the glib salesman, interested only in 
an immediate sale, is apt soon to be discovered and to 
receive little consideration. The true relationship be- 
tween the inkmaker and printer is founded on honesty, 
good service, intelligent comprehension and mutual re- 
spect. Where these maintain, the ultimate consumer 
will best be served. 



272 



Problems in Purchasing 

A S soon as a printing plant expands beyond a one- 

/\ man proposition, the proprietor begins to find 

A~ \* himself more or less dependent on others to do 

his buying. This complicates the problem, for one has 

to— 

1. Buy at the best price and terms. 

2. Buy neither too much nor too little. 

3. Keep clear of commissions and middlemen. 

4. Keep abreast of the times in new things. 

5. Avoid speculative purchases. 

To do all these things wisely through department 
heads is always difficult, and probably is not accom- 
plished to the very best advantage in any large con- 
cern. Through experience I have gradually evolved 
certain rules that work well in practice, and which I 
pass along for what they may prove of worth to others. 

First we must consider conditions. It is a theory 
that the balance of a large printing plant must be main- 
tained in order to produce economically ; by balance is 
meant that the composing room should keep pace with 
the pressroom, and both of these with the bindery, and 
other departments, so that one department constantly 
feeds another with work. In practice, this balance is 
continually upset. A new publication is secured ; its cir- 
culation bounds; soon it involves the purchase of an- 
other press ; as a result the composing room is crowded, 
and a new linotype added. Soon the pressure reaches 
the bindery, and a new folder or stitcher is demanded. 
But in striving to balance these things perhaps we have 
created a surplus of machinery in the bindery. At once 

273 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

work is hunted for to keep the bindery busy, and when 
such work is found it is liable to involve composition 
calling for another caster in the composing room. And 
so on the circle grows, and the pressure to buy and buy 
is seemingly eternal. 

All this comes about from following a set purpose- 
maintaining the balance of the plant. Where a short- 
age of equipment is felt anywhere, the head of that de- 
partment will recommend a purchase, and it is likely to 
be o. k.'d by the superintendent and bought. If it is 
below a certain value the proprietor may not know it 
until it shows up in the accounts ; if it is above a certain 
value or is problematical, he is consulted. 

It is therefore apparent that conditions in the plant 
determine the printer as to purchases of machinery. 
We do not buy because a good talker comes around and 
shows us a wonderful new machine; we buy to meet 
our wants, and we have to feel a want before we con- 
sider purchasing. Wants may come about in a variety 
of ways. For instance, a few years ago we began to 
experience difficulty in hiring extra girls as needed in 
the bindery for hand work. Certain stores had raised 
their rate of pay and carried off the surplus women help 
that formerly could be had for a rush. It became a 
question of calling for machinery to reduce the demand 
for hand workers. We put in a single-fold folder, some- 
thing we had never before considered, to relieve the 
hand folders, and this machine had such a large output 
that it promptly remedied the situation. 

Of course it is best to buy machinery for cash. We 
all know this, but not all realize that it is easier to get 
the cash than is commonly supposed. This matter is 

274 



PROBLEMS IN PURCHASING 

fully discussed in the chapter on "Profitable Financ- 
ing." 

A good deal of machinery is offered on trial, the 
agreement being that if the machine will perform a 
given amount of work, it shall be accepted and paid for. 
We never make such an agreement. If a salesman wants 
to put a machine in our place on trial we will not go 
further than to agree to buy if satisfactory to us, for 
sometimes a machine fulfils its guarantee, but does not 
fit the work we have, so that it is unprofitable. Once 
we had to throw out a very good make of press, of 
which we have a high opinion, simply because we could 
not feed it enough work to earn its floor space. 

In order to illustrate : we had a publication requiring 
a large sewing machine, and could not have the work 
done in any other bindery, so we had to purchase a 
special sewing machine, at about $1,000, to handle it. 
When the job left us we never could find much use for 
that sewer, and were glad to sell it again at a bargain. 
It is unwise to hang on to machinery which you have 
not the work to keep busy, and which does not tend to 
balance your plant ; better take the loss at once and pass 
it on to whoever can use it. 

All authorities agree that it is best to buy new ma- 
chinery rather than to fool with old machines ; yet we 
all at times buy used machinery, which suggests that 
there are exceptions to the rule. Usually lack of money 
is the impelling cause, but this should not induce a 
printer to make a poor bargain for himself. If one 
must buy a second-hand machine it should be purchased 
of a manufacturer, who will put his guarantee behind 
it; then it may be depended upon. But the usual sec- 

275 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

ond-hand press, patched just enough to make it go, 
ordinarily wastes enough time to make it more costly 
than a properly overhauled or a new machine. 

The first ten years of a press's life are worth about 
four times as much as the next ten years, and yet the 
second-hand buyer has to pay about half the first cost 
for the privilege of nursing the machine during its de- 
clining years. 

The printer without sufficient capital may know bet- 
ter than to buy second-hand material and machinery, 
but feel forced to do it in order to get a plant going. 
The only way to check him off is to stop throwing old 
presses onto the second-hand market. Why should we 
rave at Smash & Smart, second-hand dealers, when we 
feed them our old crippled machines ? We should break 
them up. The plan of the Charles Francis Press for 
years has been to turn our old machines back to the 
manufacturer as part pay for new ones. We take the 
allowance, say it is $400 for a cylinder; then make a 
cash offer, say of $200 for the old machine to the manu- 
facturer, who is glad to take it, and break all important 
parts and sell the wreck to a junk-man for say $100, 
losing $100 by the transaction, but we keep an old ruin 
off the market, and when all other printers do the same 
it will gradually eliminate the re-use of well-worn ma- 
chines, which are a menace to the trade, in that they are 
picked up and used to float offices that depreciate prices 
for printing in their neighborhood. 

In accumulating machinery it is best to stick to sizes 
which become standard in your plant. In the Charles 
Francis Press we have a lot of 5-0 cylinders, bed 46x64. 
Not only are the rollers interchangeable, but a break 

276 



PROBLEMS IN PURCHASING 

can usually be made good temporarily by using a part 
from an idle machine of the same style, thus saving 
valuable time. 

In the purchase of material that is likely to be wanted 
in quantities it is best first to purchase a little of the 
several kinds on the market, and not stock up until you 
have tested which is best for your work. Metal blocks, 
for instance, that might be quite satisfactory for certain 
slow presses, we found impossible for our rapid ma- 
chines, and there was constant trouble until we located 
a make that could not be shaken loose by hard usage. 
Then we felt safe in stocking up the place with the effi- 
cient metal blocks. 

The purchase of binder's machinery involves a pol- 
icy. The step from hand binding to machine binding is 
so great, and it is getting so impossible for hand work 
to compete, that work is all going to the large binding 
plants, equipped with modern expensive machinery. 
The result is that a small hand-operated bindery is 
no longer a paying institution. There must be a large 
outlay for up-to-date machines to secure low cost of 
production ; half-way methods are sure to fail. Folders 
and stitchers have to be bought in series, gathering and 
case-making machines are absolutely essential, trim- 
mers are replacing cutters, and time-saving machinery 
is increasing on all sides. The plants with the most 
complete equipments find that the work drifts to them 
with little selling effort. The vicinity printers soon find 
out where to go. 

When it comes to type, the small office will do well to 
stock up from the foundry in steel cabinets, with plenty 
of spacing material and furniture. The medium and 

277 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

large shops must decide on whether they require a type 
caster, and the large shop simply has to have one or 
more casters to make its stock of every-day faces, and 
provide leads, rules, slugs and spacing material. The 
non-distribution system is becoming more feasible in 
large shops, and as fonts of matrices accumulate the 
printer prefers to do his own casting. Less metal is 
tied up in shops having casters, because they do not 
keep idle fonts filling cases and stands. What is not 
needed for immediate use goes in the melting pot. The 
printer therefore learns to watch the fluctuating price 
of metal, in order to stock up when metal is low, and 
not be forced to buy at high prices. 

In the purchase of ink there is much uncertainty, 
because you do not know what you are getting until 
after you have used it. This ink is 10 cents, that is 25, 
and that 50 cents a pound; you can take your choice. 
However, the ink manufacturer today has learned the 
value of cooperation with the printer, and the need of 
maintaining his reputation. He gets trade largely be- 
cause the printer has learned to trust him. He now 
provides inks for an almost infinite variety of papers 
and conditions ; especially for color work has the char- 
acter and quality and adaptability of the inks improved. 

With the average printer ink-buying is less a matter 
of bargaining than of securing inks adapted to a variety 
of purposes and conditions, but in concerns with an an- 
nual ink bill of over $20,000, as the Francis Press, first 
cost is important. One year we were offered a contract 
to purchase all our inks at a flat price based on a percen- 
tage of the plant's production; another manufacturer 
heard of this, and took the contract at a still lower per- 

278 



PROBLEMS IN PURCHASING 

centage. It was a fair proposition at the time, but the 
war sent ink prices kiting, and made such an arrange- 
ment impracticable. See chapter titled "Printing Ink 
Problems." 

During recent years a few large customers who have 
professional buyers have taken to specifying that cer- 
tain inks be used on their work. This is an unwise prac- 
tice, for since such customers almost invariably supply 
their own paper, they are liable to bring together a 
paper and ink unsuited to each other, in which case the 
loss is wholly theirs, whereas if they leave the choice 
of ink to the printer, he becomes responsible for using 
a grade of ink that will work with the paper. 

The best rule in buying inks seems to be — choose a 
manufacturer in whom you have confidence, give him 
the majority of your trade so as to let him have a chance 
to make something, and demand the best of him. 

Paper buying has been a sore subject with the printer 
for a long time. It seems that conditions are not quite 
what they should be, and that the printing trade as a 
whole does not receive the consideration from the paper 
trade to which it is entitled. Ignoring the difficulties 
connected with the short pulp supply and war prices, 
the printer demands but does not receive recognition as 
a wholesaler or as a distributor creating a market for 
the paper manufacturer. The argument used is that 
the publisher is the great buyer, and that since he buys 
three times as much as the printer, he is entitled to the 
lowest price, and not the printer. But this expresses 
only a half truth. 

Because the printer gets no commission on paper he 
prefers to put the buying on the large consumer of 

279 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

printing and be free of it, but under such conditions he 
cannot be wholly free of responsibility in connection 
with the paper. He is continually asked to handle and 
store paper, thus becoming responsible for it for a time, 
without any allowance from either the publisher or the 
manufacturer. Though the customer may insure the 
paper against fire, the printer is still liable for soiled 
sheets, shortages, etc. He cannot quarrel with his cus- 
tomer, and the paper manufacturer and jobber, only 
too well satisfied to let things alone, ignore him. The 
jobber has even been known to quote a lower price to 
the publisher after quoting a first slightly higher figure 
to the printer. In what other trade does such non-pro- 
tection exist? 

The right condition would seem to be for the large 
publisher to continue to contract and buy wholesale, the 
best he can, and to pay the printer an agreed fair per- 
centage for handling, storage and insurance. But in the 
case of medium-sized purchases, where it is a toss-up 
as to whether the printer or his customer will buy the 
paper, the jobber or manufacturer should treat the 
printer as a salesman or creator of trade for him, and 
allow him a fair percentage, as a protection. The prin- 
ciple is followed in other trades and is a reasonable one. 

In the case of small purchases for the jobbing trade, 
the printer is undoubtedly entitled to wholesale prices 
as against the general merchant, and it is no defense 
for the paper man to cite that the merchant has a 
rating ten times as great as the printer. One principal 
reason why large stationers have grown up and ab- 
sorbed the bulk of profits in certain classes of small 
printing is that the printer was not thus protected. 

280 



PROBLEMS IN PURCHASING 

When printers get together in their associations with 
sufficient strength they can command this situation, and 
apparently not before. From five to ten per cent, differ- 
ential on small lots of paper would be very moderate. 
The stationer charges the public 25 to 60 per cent, ad- 
vance on wholesale prices; surely the printer should 
get his modest ten per cent. He takes risks in hand- 
ling, and invests time and trouble on every pound of 
paper he buys, and he should insist that the jobber pro- 
tect him as against the great public. 

Printers are apt to be too careless in accepting paper. 
It is a common practice to order a large lot, bargaining 
on a sample, and then to allow a porter to receipt for 
the paper, without either counting or weighing it sys- 
tematically. Such blind confidence is most inexplicable. 
Paper is a mighty costly material, subject to consider- 
able variation in quality, to errors in count and in 
weight. It is necessary to know what you get for your 
money. It is the small printer who is particularly lax 
in this respect, yet he is proportionally the largest 
buyer of paper. In some small shops the paper repre- 
sents 20 to 30 per cent, of the expenditure, and there 
is not a scales in the place. 

An instance of costly variation in paper comes to 
mind. A large number of booklets were printed, ar- 
ranged to come within the two-cent postal rate in mail- 
ing. The calculation was correctly made, but about 
half the paper used overran the weight ordered, with 
the result that some thousands of the booklets were 
overweight, and could not be brought down even by 
close trimming, creating a loss of $10 per 1,000 in mail- 
ing. 

281 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

When paper comes in, the packages should be counted 
and some of them at least weighed before the lot is re- 
ceipted for. If not convenient to weigh entire lots while 
the truckman waits, receipt should be given in a rubber 
stamp form stating that the total is subject to revision 
on weighing. In any case it should be weighed prompt- 
ly, and if there is a discrepancy with the bill, the paper 
man should be notified at once. If paper is in bundles, 
it is well to open it up promptly, and have the stock- 
man look carefully at a sheet in each bundle, as he 
stacks it away, that any evidence of poor quality may 
be noted at once. If the stockman is not a judge of 
paper, he should show sample sheets to the superin- 
tendent or foreman of pressroom. Errors or inequali- 
ties require to be found promptly in order to secure 
proper adjustment of the bill, or arrange for a return 
of the stock. 

When a particular paper is to be used, for the first 
time, with colored ink on a long run, it is a safeguard 
to try out the ink on the paper before paying for either 
paper or ink, and thus avoid the chance of being loaded 
down with an ink and paper that are chemically inhar- 
monious, and will not work well. Occasionally large 
jobs have been spoiled by the lack of affinity between 
the ink and some chemical constituent of the paper. 

In purchasing binding the printer requires to look 
around him and learn the equipments of the various 
plants in his vicinity; this is more important at times 
than knowing which quotes the lowest prices or hands 
out the biggest cigars. One binder will usually be 
found best for cloth work, another for pamphlets, and 
others will have their specialties, due to superior ma- 

282 



PROBLEMS IN PURCHASING 

chinery of a kind. One who is excellent for large edi- 
tions may not handle small editions well, one who does 
cheap work will rarely do justice to a high-grade job. 

Engraving and electrotyping have come to be largely 
a question of quality. In the cities it is always possible 
to purchase engravings at a square inch rate, varying 
usually 60 per cent., but the excellence of the work also 
varies — you get what you pay for. In recent years the 
electrotypers have such a close organization that a very 
flat rate prevails, which can rarely be shaken. We 
must take off our hats to this branch of the trade for 
knowing how to cooperate and create a uniform price 
for printers. I am not sure but it is a good thing, as 
one does not have to "shop" for estimates. 

The buying of labor is not often thought of as pur- 
chasing; yet such it truly is, and also the largest de- 
partment of expenditure. He who buys his labor to 
advantage has already secured half a success. Some 
men try to buy labor cheap, and to get all the hours of 
work out of the men that are possible with the least 
money; like the New York employer who discovered a 
few years ago that the (then) hour scale was about a 
quarter of a cent cheaper than the weekly scale, due to 
the omission of some fraction. He discharged all his 
hands, and engaged them again by the hour, figuring 
that he saved 12 cents a week on each. Common-sense 
ought to teach a man that they would resent such a 
procedure, and individually see to it that he got 25 cents 
less work out of each of them. 

Wiser employers adopt the Carnegie plan of trying 
to hire men smarter than themselves, and this is the 
correct idea. The more clever and better balanced a 

283 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

man is the more you need him. Such men realize that 
they have got to give their employers $6 for $5 to hold 
their places, and that if they want a raise they have got 
to earn $7. 

Every wide-awake wise employer prefers to pay $7 
or $10 a day to men who can earn it, to paying $4 or 
$5 to average men ; the difficulty is to find the men who 
can earn these extra rates. These extra-good men have 
to be found, and trained, and put into the groove where 
their abilities count for the most. Such men are the 
bargains in the labor market. You have to run your 
shop right for them to want to come with you; next 
you have to give them a chance to develop, using them 
like intelligent human beings and partners in your busi- 
ness; and lastly, you have to be willing to go "fifty- 
fifty" with them on everything they produce. 

Many printers overlook that they spend or buy nine- 
tenths as much as they sell. It follows that the spend- 
ing of money, the purchasing of machinery, supplies, 
labor, etc., is of quite as much importance as the sell- 
ing or securing of orders, and that if one buys to advan- 
tage he may largely increase his profits. Some printers 
we all know who really make ten per cent, on the print- 
ing they do, but waste it through slack and careless 
buying. A careful business man, aiming to make 10 
per cent, out of a print shop, will recognize that he 
ought to make at least 4 per cent, of this on the buying 
end, and if he gives proper thought and effort to it, he 
will. 

In the average printing plant doing $100,000 of an- 
nual business, there will be spent all of two good men's 
time, worth $5,000, to secure the orders or trade, and to 

284 



PROBLEMS IN PURCHASING 

the expenditure of $90,000 in buying will be devoted 
about 10 per cent, of the time of one good man, or a 
value of $250. Is it not worth more time and thought? 
Why not be willing to spend 1 per cent, on the buying, 
or $900 worth of time to buy $90,000 worth, and see if 
it does not yield a few thousands more to the right 
side of the annual balance sheet? 



285 



Relations with Employees 

EXPRESSED in one word the essential thing in 
the relationship between employer and em- 
ployee is harmony. This harmony cannot exist 
where either thinks the other is getting the best out of 
their dealings. Printing is done for profit, and there 
must be equitable division of these profits or inharmony 
and costly strife result. The late J. P. Morgan once 
offered $1,000 as a prize for anyone who would devise a 
simple practical means of securing an equitable divis- 
ion of the profits of labor, but never had to pay the 
prize because no one could suggest a simple means of 
getting at what was a fair division between capital and 
labor. 

Since this question has failed of complete solution 
in other industries, we cannot hope to settle it entirely 
in printing, yet we know that material progress has 
been made in recent years, and we hope for still more 
harmonious conditions in the future. Both sides re- 
quire a liberal spirit, but too much liberality, like too 
great stinginess, upsets the just balance and invites a 
collapse of the business structure. 

That all may move smoothly, there must be first a 
condition of friendship and confidence, and further — 
conditions which tend to uphold and maintain that 
friendship and confidence in the face of differences and 
dispute. If employees and employers are too far apart, 
if no way is provided for them to meet occasionally, 
and exchange views, the tendency is to drift into ex- 
treme positions, from which neither will recede, and 

286 



RELATIONS WITH EMPLOYEES 

thus a fight develops. Hence the need for systematic 
conference, conciliation and arbitration. 

Experience has taught us all that if we do not look 
out for ourselves nobody is likely to look out for us, so 
most men acquire the attitude of fighting for their 
rights. But fighting is both annoying and expensive. 
It was tried in the printing trade a good many years ; 
happily we have learned better, and now through agree- 
ments between associations of employers and the 
unions we have provided a satisfactory method of ad- 
justing differences when they arise, and in the light of 
experience we expect them to arise periodically. 

We are all safe as long as we preserve the conditions 
of "Justice to all," and "A fair day's work for a fair 
day's pay." This harmonious condition is possible 
through interest in the employee's welfare by the em- 
ployer, and interest in the employer's work by the em- 
ployees. With such reciprocity of feeling we all become 
more liberal. The difficulty with the employer often is 
that he is overburdened with financial problems, mak- 
ing it impracticable for him to give that consideration 
to his workmen which their full interest sometimes 
demands, and on the other hand the employee is apt 
to be so occupied with his own financial problems of 
filling the mouths at honie, that he also fails to con- 
sider the conditions surrounding his employer, and too 
often decides to take every dollar he can get, whether 
or not he gives the equivalent. 

It should never be forgotten that we are entirely 
dependent on each other, and only as we act fairly with 
one another can we expect the satisfaction and comfort 
that come from a realization that there are other peo- 

287 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

pie and other problems than our own, and that we are 
doing our part to produce a "live-and-let-live" policy. 

Harmony requires an understanding of each other. 
It is impossible for the employee to take from the em- 
ployer anything that he does not put in his hands first ; 
the employer is merely the agent between the customer 
and the producing workmen or employees, and if the 
latter does not give sufficient of his capital (which is 
labor) the employer will not have the capital (money) 
with which to meet his obligations and pay wages. 

When this is fully understood, it is apparent that the 
master printer and his workmen are in partnership, 
both leaning on the customer, and that the workman 
can get nothing for himself unless the employer first 
gets it from the customer. There is no ever-flowing 
fountain yielding dollars, which can be tapped by way 
of a strike and made to yield more wages ; it is simply 
a question of what can be got out of the customer, and 
how it shall be divided. It is to the mutual interest of 
men and bosses that good work be produced and plenty 
of it, and if they dispute over the division of the re- 
ceipts there may be less for both. The workman gets 
his share first, then the bills and overhead charges are 
paid, and if there is any left it belongs to the employer. 
The workman's wage is fixed and sure, or supposed to 
be, while the employer gambles for his. 

Under modern conditions the division is about this 
way: Of every dollar coming into a print shop the 
wage earner takes 50 cents, the supplies and overhead 
use up 40 cents, and the proprietor, his partners and 
the stockholders get 10 cents. The least sure to arrive 
is the last ten cents. If there are blunders or errors to 

288 



RELATIONS WITH EMPLOYEES 

be paid for they come out here ; if there is a demand for 
higher wages or shorter hours it cuts here at once. 
Those workmen who have been bosses know that it is 
no cinch to be a boss, and that while on the average the 
proprietors make more than the men, they have to earn 
their pay, and bear many a headache getting together 
the payrolls. 

Sometimes the employer "goes broke," and then 
everybody has to look for a new job. Yet the prosper- 
ous employer will never forget that one element of his 
prosperity lies in his workmen, and that when both 
have made good, and the money flows in regularly, and 
a successful business is established, he becomes respon- 
sible for them and their families to a large degree; it 
is folly for either side to ignore this relationship. It 
makes of a printing house one large family, to which 
each and all belong. If we do not develop a real fra- 
ternal feeling we are sure to be short of the best accom- 
plishment. 

I think of and speak of the men who work with me 
as "my boys" and I'll match them against any working 
crew in America or anywhere else, for producing a giv- 
en amount of printing. Sixty per cent, of them have 
been with the house over ten years, and this suggests 
the warm friendships that have grown up between us. 
I have tried to show my regard for them in various 
ways — by providing good office conditions, by paying 
the highest wages, by recognizing extra effort, by at- 
tending their annual outings, and by buying life insur- 
ance for all hands. In return I have received numer- 
ous and gratifying evidences of their friendship and 
loyalty; amongst other things a loving cup of which I 

289 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

am truly proud. They are good to each other, and also 
to unfortunates, as may be inferred from the existence 
of a Charles Francis Press Benevolent Association. 
They even show respect for my notions about the use 
of liquor. 

Perhaps the most touching testimonial of all was 
from a young woman employee, who resigned because 
of her approaching marriage. When I wished her hap- 
piness in her new relation she said simply, "If I am as 
happy in marriage as I have been in the years spent in 
your employ, Mr. Francis, I shall be satisfied.'* 

"My boys" are loyal producers, and I could tell many 
stories of their accomplishments. When I conceded the 
eight-hour day to them, it was with some misgivings. 
I called them together saying, "Boys, I am going to give 
you the shorter day at the old pay. We won't fight 
about it; but remember that we have to compete with 
some scores of open shops, running nine hours at the 
same pay you will be getting for eight, and if you don't 
make good, and produce as much as they do, this shop 
will have to either close up or be ratted. You know I 
don't want to do either, but I'm letting you have your 
chance to see if you can do it, and only reminding you 
that it is your experiment not mine, and that the success 
or failure rests with you." 

The next month, running at eight hours, we had a 
larger production in the composing room than we ever 
had under the nine-hour schedule. That is the sort of 
stuff my boys are made of, and I am proud of them. 

The time was when employers and employees re- 
garded each other as natural enemies. This was in the 
days when a leading official of the Typothetae boasted 

290 



RELATIONS WITH EMPLOYEES 

"We kept off the shorter workday for ten years," and 
when walking delegates were liable at any time on an 
hour's notice to spring some new rule on an office, pro- 
ducing the condition of instant compliance without dis- 
cussion or submitting to a walkout of the men. Each 
side spied on the other, and raised funds for a fight, 
as though warfare were the most natural thing in the 
world. 

Thirty years ago printing had the reputation of be- 
ing an unprofitable, cutthroat business in most cities, 
prices being killed by competition, and wages kept down 
by the low prices received. The unions demanded more 
pay, which the bosses felt unable to concede ; then the 
unions went to making rules that tended to increase 
costs and reduce production, making the employers very 
angry. In the general fight of 1886 the employers won, 
but in the fight of 1906 the men won. Both these vic- 
tories were very dear, but if both sides have learned 
the lessons of conference, conciliation and arbitration, 
perhaps the millions spent were not all wasted. Every 
evolutionary advance means a sacrifice. 

It is now pretty generally conceded in the trade that 
the men have a right to organize, and that it is best for 
all that they should. But union rule is disastrous unless 
it is restrained by the brake of conference with the em- 
ployers' associations. It appears that we have now 
found conditions, through the principles of the Print- 
ers' League of America, which insure peace in the 
trade indefinitely, and a uniformity of pay and of trade 
regulation, which tend to put all employers on an equal 
basis. Conditions are not quite equal, however, for 
some cities pay much higher wages than others; but 

291 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

the tendency is toward equalization, living costs consid- 
ered. 

But uniformity of wages in one locality is not an 
unmixed good. A flat scale of wages tends to the over- 
payment of the slow men and poorer workers and un- 
derpayment of the best and fastest workmen. The 
system also tends to dropping off the old men before 
they are worn out, because they cannot keep up with 
average production. They often need the work, and it 
is cruel to produce conditions which deprive them of 
earning the lesser amount they are capable of. Per- 
haps the unfairness of this will some day bring us to 
the rule existing in British # union printshops, where 
there are three grades of workmen, with three differ- 
ent wage rates according to their capacities. New men 
start in the lower grade and have to show certain pro- 
duction and skill before they are raised to a higher 
class. This rule works well for all, and it is hard to 
understand why it has never appealed to the unions in 
the American printing trade. 

Education of employees in the problems of the em- 
ployer is of vital value in improving the relations be- 
tween the two, and in directing the prosperity of the 
trade as a whole. When men know just what is for 
their best interests they are bound to work along those 
lines of endeavor ; but employees not well informed as to 
conditions with employers are apt to injure themselves 
by their activities. It is a mistake to try to regulate 
the personal habits of employees. They have a right to 
get full on their own time, or to gamble or dissipate. 
But those who do these things should not be surprised 
at being laid off and seeing sober and wiser men take 

292 



RELATIONS WITH EMPLOYEES 

their places. Men are apt to rebel at prohibition of 
smoking, but as this affects fire risk they should recog- 
nize that "No Smoking" protects them quite as much 
as it protects others. It should be a part of trade- 
school education to inform every apprentice of the 
fundamental laws of business, that it may be generally 
understood how inexorable they are ; and it would aid 
immensely if trade journals, and especially those circu* 
lating among union men, were well supplied with in- 
formation concerning the trend of business, and discus- 
sion of the economic principles under which the trade 
exists. 

The workers mean to be fair, but sometimes in their 
desire to do better for themselves they are not fair, 
and they promulgate erroneous philosophy that brings 
trouble for everybody. Let us illustrate the case by 
presuming the introduction of a new press, with double 
the capacity of the machine it displaces. When it makes 
its first appearance it has to be set moving by men who 
understand it ; these have to be trained at the place of 
manufacture. Such men coming from a factory to a 
printshop in another city would not be likely to belong 
to the pressmen's union. It is proper that they should 
be taken into the local union, and if thoroughly compe- 
tent it may be that they would receive a wage $2 higher 
than paid on the less complicated press replaced. 

But suppose the local union insists on putting a local 
man on the job, who does not know the machine, and 
at the same time wants $2 raise for being permitted to 
learn. This makes a condition that may very easily rob 
the employer of every dollar of profit to be made off the 
new fast machine. He is apt to sicken of the proposi- 

293 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

tion and tell the manufacturer to take out his machine. 
Thus everybody loses money, and ill feeling is devel- 
oped, and the printing office is deprived of a money 
earner which would bring more work into the shop, and 
probably create work for two or three more union men 
in other departments. 

The maker of the machine, to get a foothold in that 
city, then makes a proposition to an open shop where 
the men cannot interfere. The fast press goes in, is a 
success, and the open shop as a result takes away from 
the union shop that threw out the press several thou- 
sand dollars' worth of annual business, because it can 
be done quicker and cheaper under non-union auspices 
on the rapid machine, and thus two or three union men 
are released from the union shop and have to seek an- 
other city for employment. 

I have outlined this case at length to make clear the 
fundamental principles of trade, violated in the first 
place, in the effort to make a good job for one man, but 
resulting in the throwing out of two or three union 
men. 

If in such a case the union men had let the proposi- 
tion alone, as being a detail of the employer's business 
and no problem of theirs, confining their efforts to 
making the new press a success and a builder up of the 
employer's business, awaiting the development of its 
latent earning power, before trying to take from the 
employer press-profits not yet earned, it would have 
been better for all concerned, and doubtless when the 
new press had actually brought in considerable money, 
and it was somewhere near paid for, the employer 
would not object to a $2 raise of the pressman who had 

294 



RELATIONS WITH EMPLOYEES 

helped him to such a result. Thus all parties to the 
transaction would have been benefited. 

It was just because of such unwise, narrow union leg- 
islation that the Thorne typesetting machine was de- 
veloped 30 years ago as a non-union proposition, and 
found its way into at least 500 printing offices, in every 
case tending to strengthen the shop as a non-union 
concern. Probably the majority of the officials of the 
larger unions now understand the principles here out- 
lined, but many men who have come into the trade have 
no experience with such problems, hence it is cited and 
emphasized here as typical of the principle that the 
union employee must work with, not against, the union 
employer, for his own good quite as much as for the 
employer's. 

When the employees of an office introduce and pro- 
mulgate a rule or custom that hurts the office they hurt 
themselves, for they are partners in the business, draw- 
ing many times more money than the proprietors. 

The only right and safe way for the employee to get 
more out of the business is to help the employer make 
more and then ask him to divide. But when an em- 
ployer has to spend half his time defending himself 
against the aggressions of the men who ought to be his 
helpers, that much energy is withdrawn from the push- 
ing of the business, and less money is made, and there is 
less to pay out in wages. 

An instance of short-sighted unionism comes in mind 
in regard to a daily trade circular that was offered to a 
union office. The union notified the office that if it 
handled the job the men would have to work under the 
daily newspaper scale. The printing office proprietor 

295 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

protested, urging that he was running a book and job 
office, and that because this job happened to have a 
daily issue, it was in no sense a competing daily news- 
paper nor his office a newspaper office. But the union 
was obdurate and insisted, the result being that the job 
went to an open shop, and has been handled by non- 
union printers for the last dozen years. Long afterward 
the same employer, still operating a union book and job 
office, was offered another daily trade review, and again 
put the question up to the union officials, reminding 
them of what happened on the previous occasion. By 
this time the union officials saw a light, and ruled that 
the job was not a daily newspaper, and it has been 
issued ever since in a union shop, as the first job 
might have been, but for the mistaken zeal of the union 
officials then making the decision. 

It is the workmen who do not understand conditions 
with the employers who create trouble. Such as these 
endeavor to force employers to hire two men to do the 
work of one on a given machine, and try to reduce out- 
put, unaware that such things hurt themselves quite as 
much as any one else. Under the old system of making 
shop rules — still in force in some places, I regret to 
say — some employee who thinks he has a grievance 
against his employer will grab hold of the business 
agent of a union as he comes through the shop, and fill 
him full of the story of his alleged wrongs. A union's 
business agent is hired by his union on purpose to take 
up such matters, and he usually proceeds to act with- 
out investigation of the story, least of all does he think 
of going into the business office of the employer, and 
inviting him to state his side of the disagreement. The 

296 



RELATIONS WITH EMPLOYEES 

result may easily be a ruling going forth from the 
union that is utterly unfair and impracticable in its 
workings. 

Under the right system — that inaugurated by the 
Printers' League — the business agent does not go 
through the shop without the employer's consent, and 
employees having grievances must make them in due 
form. When cause for complaint is found by the busi- 
ness agent, it becomes a matter for conference, concilia- 
tion, and if necessary arbitration — but usually it never 
reaches the latter stage. 

In my own shop, in case of any difference of opinion, 
I send for the chapel foreman, and state my side of the 
case to him; he talks with the men of his chapel, and 
reports back to me. With a little wholesome restraint 
on both sides, and a mutual desire to be fair, we always 
arrive at a settlement without calling for any outside 
aid. 

Unions are good things when run rightly, just as are 
employer's associations. Both make mistakes and com- 
mit errors ; being run by human beings they can hardly 
do otherwise. The wise course for sane men, whether 
employed or employing, is to belong to their own organ- 
ization, and to help to guide it on equitable lines. With 
more activity of the best men in the unions there never 
would have been any demand on employers to pay 
double time when not really justified, and with 
more recognition of what is due workmen there never 
would have been any serious and prolonged antagonism 
to the shorter workday on the part of employers. 

There are undoubtedly many employers who need 
education as to the conditions surrounding their men, 

297 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

and the hardships they endure, and who fail to sym- 
pathize with the workers because they never have had 
to work that way themselves. I consider that it was for- 
tunate for me that I once knew what it was to work ten 
hours a day as a journeyman for $9 a week, for in no 
other way could I comprehend fully how a man feels 
when he is hard worked and poorly paid. And it may 
be just as hard now for a man making $25 a week in 
New York to care properly for a family as it was when 
$9 was considered a fair equivalent for a week's work. 

Many employers who have been through the mill and 
grind of hard work at close wages will sympathize ever 
afterward with workers who become restless at times, 
and will remember that they are not machines, but have 
their problems quite as difficult as the employer's, and 
that these should always receive consideration. The 
quiet man who runs his press day in and day out with 
never a vacation may be supporting four or five people 
unfit for work, and that woman tirelessly fingering 
the keyboard may be paying the bills for her sister's 
fatherless children for all we know. These cases of 
noble self-sacrifice are not so rare. When shops were 
small and all knew each other well, there was little con- 
tention between employer and employee. It has come 
about through their being too far apart to understand 
each other. The obvious remedy is to get together 
again, as far as possible, under the changed conditions 
where shops grow constantly larger and the heads of a 
business see less of the workers. 

Of course there are mean and small employers who 
do not know enough to appreciate and reward good 
service, but the faithful and efficient workmen usually 

298 



RELATIONS WITH EMPLOYEES 

know enough to quit their service, and thus they are 
left to man their plants with a second grade of help. 
This is the natural punishment which business condi- 
tions bring to the employer who gets a reputation for 
being unfair. The most of us, however, are human 
enough to be selfish a good deal of the time, and this 
prevents ideal conditions anywhere. Nevertheless, fifty 
years of experience have shown me that the employers 
and the employees who adhere most closely to fair and 
honorable and generous methods are most commonly 
the ones who succeed. Clever selfishness succeeds for 
a time, but wears itself out in the long run, and he who 
rises by trampling on the rights of others is himself 
trampled down by the inexorable laws of compensation. 

A number of years ago I came to the conclusion that 
the average employer did not let the employee know 
enough about his business. He was too apt to think the 
employee might learn his ways and set up an opposition 
across the street — and the printer across the street is 
always magnified into a very satanic personage. I find 
that the more I educate my boys as to my business and 
my methods the more they help me, and the better off 
we all are. When some of them resign, and go into 
business for themselves, we all say "God bless 'em," 
and give them a send-off. Rarely do they take or try 
to take a customer away from the old shop. Knowing 
we wish them well, they do not want our trade, but look 
for dissatisfied customers elsewhere. 

With the assistance of other employers I have tried 
my best to spread the spirit of friendship between em- 
ployer and employees in the printing houses of the 
United States, and what time I could spare from my 

299 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

own business has been largely devoted to that end dur- 
ing the last dozen years. It is a duty we owe to each 
other and to humanity to help the other fellow, and one 
of the curious things about it is that the more you try 
to help others the more you help yourself. It comes 
back to you in obtaining their good will, as well as in 
dollars and cents. 

While the bulk of this chapter has been devoted to 
emphasizing the cultivation of good will and right senti- 
ments between employer and employee, yet it must be 
recognized that there are many men in both classes who 
have not yet sprouted their heavenly wings, and who 
need to have a time-clock tied to them, as it were, to 
keep them moving regularly. To run a printing office 
properly it is necessary to know what each man can do, 
and what he does do, and see to it that he keeps up to 
a reasonable schedule of production. If this is not done 
systematically there will be paying of wages to those 
who do not earn them, which will have to be made up 
by overcrowding the willing workers, which is obvi- 
ously unfair. 

Every master printer is troubled more or less with 
half-educated or incompetent workmen. They are 
with us largely because of our lack of apprentice 
schools, and are pitied more than censured. We teach 
them when we can, and once in a while make a good 
worker of one, but many have to be taken on in a rush 
season and dropped when it is over, drifting on to some 
other temporary job. There should be better facilities 
for training such men, and giving them a chance to 
develop the best there is in them, and this is why asso- 
ciations of both employers and employees should be 

300 



RELATIONS WITH EMPLOYEES 

willing to make some financial sacrifices for such 
schools. 

The opportunity of all employees is practically the 
same, whatever they may think. There are always 
those who groan over the promotion of another, where- 
as they should study themselves for deficiencies to dis- 
cover why the promotions did not come to them. The 
compositor who improves his spelling, reads the trade 
journals, and watches the methods of the better men 
about him, is the fellow who finds himself picked for 
assistant foreman, and thus naturally educated to fill 
the foreman's place when he quits. In time he may be 
the superintendent, and later fill the boss's shoes. In 
every job the employee should not only perfect himself, 
but make himself fit for the job above him. The really 
efficient men are scarce, and you will not wait long for 
recognition if you are competent. The trouble is that 
too many allow their vanity to mislead them as to their 
proficiency; the judgment of the men who work with a 
man is more apt to be correct as to his ability than his 
own biased view. 

There are a few exceptions, where ability is not rec- 
ognized by a man's employer; but in such cases it is 
up to him to move on to a shop where he can see he is 
wanted, and where effort is likely to be rewarded with 
promotion. The man who makes good finds himself 
pushed ahead. The competent apprentice is the first 
to be put on display; the chap who sets a clean proof 
finds himself wanted in the proofreading department; 
the feeder who is of most use in patching up is the first 
to get a full pressman's job; the thoughtful workman 
who introduces a new customer to the house is not 

301 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

surprised when he is sent out as a salesman. All these 
promotions come naturally to those who deserve them. 

I remember a man who applied for a foreman's job 
in a good-sized office, and was told by the superintend- 
ent that in a few weeks the place should be his. Com- 
ing back in a month the superintendent said, "I am 
sorry to disappoint you, but another man has come 
along who controls a large amount of work that we 
need, and I am about to place him, in the position." 
Said the applicant, "As you know, this has put me to 
considerable inconvenience to free myself from other 
obligations. Can you not split this job, putting me in 
charge of one department and your other man in charge 
of the other department for thirty days, and then if 
you prefer him I have nothing to say?" 

The superintendent agreed, and this applicant took 
hold in a way previously unknown in that establish- 
ment. When the thirty days were up, it had been so 
apparent that he outclassed the foreman who controlled 
work, that he simply said to the superintendent, "Now 
you know what I can do, what are you going to do?" 
"Put you in entire charge," was the reply. Six months 
later the proprietor sent for this hustling foreman and 
said, "You are twice as competent as our superintend- 
ent. He has a chance to go elsewhere, and I am going 
to put you in his place." At the end of another six 
months, the proprietor offered him an interest in the 
business on practically his own terms. He had changed 
a losing proposition into a profitable one. This is a true 
story, though I cannot mention names. It is told here 
to emphasize the point — why it pays the employee to 
hustle for the shop. 

302 



Growth of Trade Associations 

THE history of printing trade associations in the 
United States begins with the first year of the 
Republic, 1776, when a temporary organization 
of journeymen was formed in New York City, Phila- 
delphia falling in line ten years later. But the first real 
organization of employees was the Typographical So- 
ciety of 1795, which lasted two and a half years, and 
secured a $1 a week increase for its members. It was 
followed in 1799 by the Franklin Typographical Society, 
of which David Bruce, the typefounder, was the first 
president. Its wage scale was 25 cents per 1,000 ems, 
$8 a week in newspaper offices, and $7 in job offices. 

The Philadelphia printers organized in 1802, when 
the Philadelphia Typographical Society was born, con- 
tinuing to this day as a benevolent association. The 
Boston Typographical Society followed in 1803, and 
the Hub has also the honor of producing the first asso- 
ciation of employers in the trade, the Faustus Associa- 
tion, formed in 1805, to regulate prices charged the 
public ; it was short-lived. Philadelphia continued the 
banner city for organized working printers for many 
years. In 1816 their society had 80 members and 
boosted the weekly scale to $9; by 1850 their member- 
ship had grown to 235, and $2 a day was talked of and 
paid to some of the best men. While there were union 
organizations in most of the large cities by 1850, $6 to 
$9 continued as an ordinary wage, and numerous fights 
were undergone to place the scale at $12 and $13 for 
morning newspaper workers. 

"303 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

ASSOCIATIONS OF EMPLOYEES 

National conventions of employees were held in 1850, 
1851 and 1852, and in the latter year, at Cincinnati, the 
National Typographical Union was born, with fourteen 
locals. Though the membership fell off considerably 
during the Civil War, by 1869 the national body grew 
to 79 locals, with over 7,500 members. In 1869 it be- 
came the International Typographical Union, and since 
then the growth has been rapid. There was a falling 
off in 1877 and 1878, due to general financial depression, 
and in the latter year only 69 locals and 4,260 members 
were reported in good standing, this being practically 
the same membership as in 1866. Gradually there was 
a return, and in 1882 the membership passed the 10,000 
mark, while 95 locals were in good standing; by this 
date the accessions were rapid, and in 1884 there were 
161 local unions with over 16,000 individual members 
in the I. T. U. The 25,000 mark was attained in 1891, 
when there were 309 locals — a gain for the year of 104 
locals. The membership continued to steadily increase 
to 31,379, with 354 locals, in 1894, and then the finan- 
cial depression operated to reduce the figures, which 
fell to 28,000 in 1897. During the following prosperous 
years there was a steady accretion, culminating in 1905 
with 46,734 members and 690 locals. The union was 
now so strong that the strike of 1906 and the panic of 
1907 had less effect, though more than 4,000 (or nearly 
ten per cent.) of the members dropped out. They came 
back again by 1910, and in 1911 the 50,000 mark was 
passed, and 696 locals reported. In 1916 the official 
figures were 60,231 individual members, divided among 
754 local unions. 

304 • 



GROWTH OF TRADE ASSOCIATIONS 

The famous local union that antedates all the inter- 
national organizations is popularly known as "Big Six" 
of New York, organized as the New York Printers' 
Union, in 1850, with 28 members. It was not a power- 
ful or influential body until about 1868 and 1869, in 
which latter year the membership passed the 2,000 
mark, only to fall away to 1,000 a decade later. Big Six 
is rightfully proud of the fact that Horace Greeley was 
its first president, and that it has numbered among its 
members many prominent men: Gideon J. Tucker, 
founder of the Daily News, and Secretary of State; 
Congressman Amos J. Cummings ; Gov. G. W. Peck of 
Wisconsin ; I. W. England, of the N. Y. Sun; Congress- 
man Joseph J. Little; Public Printer Samuel B. Don- 
nelly; and probably a third of the proprietors of the 
book and job printing houses of New York City. The 
membership in January, 1917, was 7,638, a gain of 
2,200 in 16 years. 

What the unions have accomplished in raising wages 
and shortening hours may be most easily reviewed by 
noting the gains in New York City, which has usually 
paid top wages, though occasionally Far Western cities 
(where printers were scarce) have paid as much or 
more. The New York Printers' Union spent the entire 
year of 1850 in working up conditions to introduce a 
higher scale, which was announced in February, 1851 ; 
$10 for job hands working ten hours, and $14 for news- 
paper hands working twelve hours, and $11 for night 
news compositors working nine hours, and piece rates 
of 27 to 36 cents per 1,000 ems were the figures which 
were partially forced upon the reluctant employing 
printers of the metropolis. The pressmen's pay was 

305 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

fixed at $10 and $12. There were also piece rates for 
presswork and for making up. 

It seems singular to have to record that these very 
moderate demands were generally resisted, and one 
newspaper held out for a long time. In 1853 there was 
another boost of about 15 per cent., which was resisted 
by five newspapers. Most of the book and job offices 
were also recalcitrant, and their average wage was 
stated as $6 a week. But Greeley was the printers' 
friend, paying the top scale and openly advocating bet- 
ter remuneration. During the panic of 1857 the unions 
voluntarily abandoned their scale, and the accepted 
rates were $12 for ten hours and $16 for twelve hours 
on newspapers. When Sunday work came in the men 
got an extra dollar. 

The Civil War took many printers to the front, and 
wages were advanced both in 1863 and 1864, in which 
latter year week hands received $15, in New York, or 
a dollar more than the Philadelphia scale. Towards 
the close of the War an $18 scale was established for 
day work and $20 for night compositors, the piece rate 
going up to 50 and 55 cents for manuscript. The union 
lost some newspapers, and the book and job offices 
never pretended to pay the scale. But in 1869, the 
union having been much strengthened, an attempt was 
made to enforce the $20 scale for a week of 59 hours 
in the book and job offices. The Typothetse (the first 
organization, born in 1862) resisted, and 500 men went 
on strike. The Typothetse adopted a scale of its own, 
paying $20 to "competent men." After several months' 
strike there was a compromise on the piece scale, and 
$20 was accepted as the journeyman's wage in New 

306 



GROWTH OF TRADE ASSOCIATIONS 

York. At the same time, 50 cents an hour was con- 
ceded for overtime, 70 cents for Sunday work, and $1 
for Sunday night. The following year the newspaper 
scale was made $20 and $22 for eight hours' work. 
Two years later another $2 was added, and the news- 
paper piece scale went up to 50 cents. The smaller 
cities mostly paid $1, $2 or $3 less than this metropoli- 
tan scale. 

Wage scales were forgotten in the panic of 1873, and 
in 1876 the New York newspaper scale was back to $18 
for ten hours' work on evening papers. In 1883 the 
book piece scale was only 35 cents. In 1887 it became 
possible to again work up the rates, and the newspapers 
paid $20 for day work and $27 for nine hours' night 
work; but $18 a week, and 45 cents per 1,000 was the 
best that could be obtained from the book and job houses 
in the Typothetse. 

In 1890 conditions began to alter. The newspaper 
publishers formed their own association and dropped 
out of the Typothetse ; they also generally made use of 
the linotype. For day work $22 and night work $27 
was the agreed price for operators ; proofreaders were 
given $24 the next year, these being all newspaper 
prices; the linotype did not get into the book and job 
offices until a few years later. In 1902 the Typographi- 
cal Union and Typothetse agreed upon a scale of $20 a 
week for hand compositors and $22 for machine ope- 
rators. Through arbitration the newspaper scale was 
raised slightly in 1907 and again in 1910. The scale 
for eight hours' night work was made $32 and the 
"third shift" got $35 for iy 2 hours' work; machine 
tenders were given $25 to $31. 

307 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The Printers' League of America began to pay $22 
to book and job hands for eight hours in 1910, $23 the 
next year and $24 the next. In 1917 the New York 
scale runs all the way from $25 for hand compositors in 
book and job offices to $35 for the lobster or third shift 
on newspapers. 

I have been at the pains to state all this in detail to 
make clear that in 67 years of persistent effort the 
unions have reduced hours from twelve to eight, and 
raised wages from a level of about $8 to near $30. 
Their per hour compensation has thus increased about 
550 per cent, and they have raised themselves from 
"the pauper wage level of Europe" to the level of "free 
American wage workers. And they have done this in 
spite of the resistance of the employers, teaching the 
employers the value of cooperation, and the possibility 
of getting more money out of the public. The unions 
have been the real upbuilders of the printing industry 
in the United States, and the employers have simply 
followed. 

The record given above of Big Six's progress in price 
boosting, begun under the tutelage of their first presi- 
dent, the ever honored Horace Greeley, who looms up 
with increasing grandeur as time passes, is typical of 
what occurred all over the country; and without such 
measures employers would be today trying to reduce 
wages and compete by using cheaper help, instead of 
by giving better service. 

In commending the unions for their accomplishments, 
I do not wish to appear as blind to their defects and 
errors, which are numerous. They have at times em- 
ployed walking delegates and business agents whose 

30S 



GROWTH OF TRADE ASSOCIATIONS 

chief idea of efficiency seemed to be to harass the em- 
ployer. The crowding on of an extra man where he 
was not needed has been regarded as an accomplish- 
ment. In truth such a thing is as damaging to the 
workmen as to the employers, for by raising cost in the 
closed shops work is driven to the open shops, and often 
to non-union men working below the scale. 

The proper way of progress is for unions and asso- 
ciations of employers to work with each other, to con- 
sult each others' needs and not make any hurried moves 
until a full understanding is arrived at from both points 
of view, so that things may operate harmoniously. In 
the incipiency of the Printers' League there was a reso- 
lution adopted that no agreement should be made with 
unions that did not represent 70 per cent, of the trade 
in the locality, and there was much good sense in the 
proposition. When unions have become very strong, 
almost monopolizing a field of labor, there has been 
often a tendency to abuse power, and thus injure the 
trade. This is avoided by frequent conference between 
employers and employed, so that they understand each 
other. 

On one occasion the union refused to allow my son 
to learn the business in our composing room, saying I 
already had a complement of apprentices. I notified 
them that it would be wholly unfair for me to discharge 
an apprentice to make a place for my son; that he 
should not be classed as a competing apprentice, for he 
was not learning the business to become a journeyman, 
but that he might take my place later in the manage- 
ment. Finally I made them see the point, and the per- 
mission was granted. Yet I have heard of similar 

309 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

instances where proprietors were refused permission 
to allow a member of their family to work in their own 
shop. Such refusal works only harm and ill feeling, 
and is the sort of thing that has made so many employ- 
ers antagonistic toward unions. 

The International Printing Pressmen and Assist- 
ants' Union was organized in 1889 with 380 members. 
During the next ten years the organization was brought 
to 9,000 members. In 1907 they had 16,882 individual 
members, and in 1917 some 38,000, including about 350 
locals. The growth has been comparatively uniform, 
and the progress of the wage scale has closely followed 
that of the Typographical Union. The International 
Brotherhood of Bookbinders, founded in 1892, had 
12,000 members and 140 locals in 1917, and the Inter- 
national Stereotypers' and Electro typers' Union, and 
the International Photo-Engravers' Union, both or- 
ganized in 1901, have been very successful, and domi- 
nate their branches of the printing industry. About 
1902 the International Printing Trades Association was 
formed, for the development of local Allied Trade 
Councils, and these various unions have since been 
enabled to cooperate together on important business. 
At this writing 24 unions are represented in the Allied 
Trades Council. 

EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS 

The Typothetse organization began in New York in 
1862, but lapsed once or twice, effecting a permanent 
organization in 1883, largely through the efforts of 
Douglas Taylor. It was formed of the proprietors of 
the representative book and job printing houses of New 

310 



GROWTH OF TRADE ASSOCIATIONS 

York City, Theodore L. De Vinne being the leading 
spirit for many years, being followed in the presidency 
by Joseph J. Little. In 1887 the United Typothetse of 
America was formed, and eventually took in most of the 
large commercial printing houses of the country, which 
became unified largely by their resistance to the de- 
mands for better wages and a shorter workday. 

While the Typothetae has done many things for the 
trade, and served as a valuable educator, its record has 
been mainly negative in that its chief motive has been 
to resist advance in wages and reduction in hours, 
both of which are now recognized as characteristic of 
American development in all lines of industry. For 
about ten years it fought off the nine-hour day, which 
was finally settled at the Syracuse Convention in 1898, 
but lost out totally on the eight-hour day in 1906, and 
during recent years has consolidated with the Ben 
Franklin Clubs (started in 1900), as the United Typo- 
thetae and Franklin Clubs of America, and done most 
excellent work in educating the trade as to cost systems 
and price making. So thorough has their work been 
that it seems useless to give space in this book to cost 
finding, and the inquiring printer is referred to them 
at 608 South Dearborn street, Chicago, for complete 
literature on the subject. 

In 1900 Charles H. Cochrane organized the New York 
Master Printers' Association, and within two years 
built up the membership to about 400, being the largest 
individual membership in any local employers' associa- 
tion in the printing trades. It is designed to bring 
about cooperation between the small and medium-sized 
printing houses, to check price-cutting, and exchange 

311 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

information as to credits. It has proved a valuable 
force in upbuilding trade interests. 

The National Association of Electrotypers, and of 
Photo-Engravers, came into existence in the opening 
years of the century, and the National Association of 
Employing Lithographers in 1906. The Printing House 
Craftsmen organized in 1909. The rise and progress 
of the Printers' League is the subject of another chap- 
ter. The League has recently formed an alliance with 
the TypothetaB, under the name of the Employing 
Printers' Association of the City of New York, Printers' 
League Section, and general business is transacted 
through one set of officers, but the League section 
which is known as the closed shop section, transacts 
all business in regard to agreements, etc., with union 
labor, so that the trade may look forward to peaceful 
negotiations in future between all the organizations, 
whether of employers or employed. 

The newspaper branch of the printing fraternity has 
also developed a number of important associations. The 
Associated Press, originally a combination of New 
York daily newspapers, has been since 1900 an incorpo- 
rated company, and includes now in its membership 
some 1,600 daily newspaper publishers. The American 
Newspaper Publishers' Association was born in 1887, 
and has been a power in the publishing world. The 
National Editorial Association has been a conspicuous 
factor for thirty years, and the Associated Advertising 
Clubs of the World, though one of the youngest of the 
associations, holds the banner for large conventions. 
The Trade Press associations also have their national 
body, and there are some scores of other associations 

312 



GROWTH OF TRADE ASSOCIATIONS 

serving locally the interests of various fractions of the 
trade. 

What have these sketches of associations got to do 
with "printing for profit" ? someone may ask. They are 
vitally important, as showing the historical develop- 
ment of cooperation in the trade, and its tendencies. 
They are the incontrovertible records of experience. 
A comparison with European trade conditions, where 
there is little cooperation will illustrate. 

From 1900 to 1903 the average compositor's hour 
wage in the United States grew from 40 to 44 cents; 
in Great Britain it grew from 17 to 18 cents; in Ger- 
many from lS J / 2 to 14 cents ; and in France from 12>4 
to 13 cents ; while in Belgium it ranged between 8 and 
9 cents. American printers have for years been getting 
three to four times the pay of European printers, and 
the proprietors must also be making considerably more. 
And our prosperity is due principally to the aggressive 
activity of the typographical and other unions, which 
taught the employers' organizations, so that coopera- 
tion developed ; and secondly, to the phenomenal inven- 
tive ability and energy of the manufacturers of machin- 
ery in America, who have enabled us to produce more 
rapidly and economically, so that the public buys its 
printing even more cheaply under the present high 
wages, than it did fifty years ago, under low wages, 
comparable with the European levels. 

Having learned these principles of cooperation, and 
that unions of employees are really a good thing (even 
if subject to occasional error), and that associations 
of employers can work together amicably (even if men 
are naturally selfish) , and that both classes of organiza- 

313 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

tions, by conference, conciliation and arbitration, can 
work together for mutual good, maintaining harmony, 
and building up the trade, let us all be more active in 
our association work, remembering, as Marcus M. 
Marks says, that "the day when a merchant or manu- 
facturer can afford to stand alone has gone by. He must 
cooperate with others to insure success." 

I became a union member in 1866, and put in fifteen 
years as an employee. My relation to the union in 
London, and later in Little Rock, Ark., is shown in the 
working cards reproduced herewith. In 1877, when I 
was financial secretary of the Little Rock union, I 
walked out with the boys against a twenty per cent, re- 
duction, and on other occasions I walked out in Louis- 
ville and Chicago. But I am gratified to be able to say 
that after I became an employer my men have not found 
it necessary to walk out on me, and that I have found it 
possible always to meet demands for more pay and 
shorter hours, and to maintain harmonious relations 
with them. The Charles Francis Press feeders were 
out for a few days once, when the feeders in all the 
Typothetae shops of the city quit, but they were the last 
to quit and the first to come back, and there was abso- 
lutely no unfriendly feeling. The slight frictions that 
have occurred in the employers' organizations to which 
I have belonged have left me without hard feelings 
toward any, and I hope none holds a grudge against me. 

The lesson to be drawn from organization move- 
ments is plain : Cooperation is one of the prime essen- 
tials of "printing for profit" — meaning both coopera- 
tion between employer and employee, and cooperation 
between competing employers. 

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THREK INTERESTING UNION CARDS 



The Printers' League of America 

THE late John C. Rankin, a great soul, good 
printer and brilliant orator, on a memorable oc- 
casion when the New York Typothetse first seri- 
ously discussed a defense fund, faced a group of the 
larger employers in the book and job trade of the city, 
and declared against it as wrong in principle, and sure 
to invoke a disastrous trade war. Said he : "Gentlemen, 
just so sure as you raise a lot of money to back a fight 
you'll have a fight." His utterance was the more re- 
markable as he stood alone in opposition to the other- 
wise practically unanimous sentiment for a fund to 
fight the unions. 

All Printerdom now knows that Mr. Rankin was 
right, for the Typothetae raised its $100,000 and the 
Union raised its millions, and they fought out the ques- 
tion of the shorter workday, with a trade loss, all things 
considered, of between $20,000,000 and $25,000,000. 
Long before that fight was ended; I decided that it was 
up to me to do something, and the result of my study 
of the problem of trade harmony and my efforts to 
bring it about is The Printers' League of America, of 
which I frankly confess I am proud. 

One day in 1906, while the shorter workday fight was 
still an active proposition, I called a meeting of em- 
ployers to consider an organization based on the prin- 
ciples of conciliation, consultation and arbitration, 
That call brought out just four men : Henry W. Cher- 
ouny, Frank Meany, B. P. Willett, and myself. Though 
disappointed at securing only a quartette, we were all 

315 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

serious and determined, and agreed on the need of an 
organization in which employers and employees would 
meet on a common ground. 

Another call was issued, and a dinner inducement 
added to the discussion. This brought out an attend- 
ance of 21, and the basis of a tentative organization 
was laid. The printing houses interested were all em- 
ploying union labor, and had granted the eight-hour 
day, but the proprietors felt that the unions ought to 
make it easier for them, as many of them were in direct 
competition with shops running nine hours a day. 

By 1909 the membership swelled to 55, and in that 
year the Electrotypers' League joined as a body, bring- 
ing the membership up to 69. The 55 printing firms 
had then about 10,000 employees. The first accom- 
plishment was the making of an agreement between the 
press-feeders' organization, Franklin No. 23, and the 
League. That was followed by an agreement between 
the Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union and the 
League, and then by a contract with Typographical 
Union No. 6. These agreements were different in one 
important particular from previous arrangements made 
between employers in the printing trade and the unions. 
Instead of being closed between the officers of the dif- 
ferent organizations they were discussed at open meet- 
ings at which any of those interested had a right to get 
up and speak. In this way there was obtained a unity 
of opinion and a soundness of conditions unknown in 
previous agreements. 

The working out of these agreements has been in 
the main satisfactory. There were ripples to be 
smoothed at times, but the affiliations between em- 

316 






THE PRINTERS' LEAGUE OF AMERICA 

ployers and employed became so close that harmony 
has always been obtained, and no thought of strikes 
has been raised. The trade unions were made a part 
of the League, and the Union members came to feel 
just as much at home in walking into the League rooms 
as into Union headquarters. If it was proposed to alter 
the rules of operation of the pressroom or bindery, the 
representatives of the Unions were notified that the 
question would be brought up at such a time, and in- 
vited to be present and discuss the points at issue. 

This invited fair dealing, and has done away with the 
practice of either body voting rules to be enforced 
against the other. 

The Printers' League in making contracts with the 
several Unions, agreed to employ their members and 
their members only, provided these Unions could, at 
all times, supply a full complement of competent work- 
men for the several departments. This understanding 
has operated to interest the Unions in developing and 
educating their members to competency. They realized 
that they could not expect to hold employers unless they 
provided good workmen at all times. 

The Unions also agreed that no matter what griev- 
ances were supposed to exist in an establishment be- 
longing to a member of the Printers' League, no strike 
should be called therein until the supposed grievance 
should be submitted in writing through the proper 
channel to the Printers' League, and a reasonable time 
given for investigation and hearing before a joint com- 
mittee of the League and the Unions ; and it was further 
agreed that the findings of a majority of this joint 
committee, composed of an equal number of employers 

317 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

and employees, should be finally accepted. If there 
was a tie the matter was to go to an arbitrator, and 
each organization pledged its members to abide by the 
arbitrator's decision. 

The way in which the matter of satisfactory agree- 
ments has been worked out is instructive. It is a ques- 
tion of friendly relations between the employer and the 
employee. The League's members believe it is better 
to have the employees work with them than for them. 
Frequently a number of employers go down to the 
Union rooms and consult with them. In the case of the 
contract with Big Six, the local League officers and the 
Union officials got together and formulated an agree- 
ment. An open meeting was then asked for by the 
League with Union No. 6 to put that agreement in 
force, by the consent of those interested. There were 
close to 2,000 members of the Union and seven em- 
ployers at the meeting. Naturally there were some 
very strong speeches made against that contract, but 
with the counteracting influence of the employers on 
the platform to state their side of the proposition, the 
agreement was finally carried by unanimous consent, 
showing that a full presentation of the conditions 
brought all to the same frame of mind. 

One of the things accomplished by this agreement 
was the stopping of the practice of the business agent 
of the Unions from going through the workrooms of a 
League shop without the employer's permission. Under 
the old system one-sided complaints were acted on with- 
out consultation, and difficulties were brought on 
through hasty action. Under the new system, when 
the business agent of a Union finds something that 

318 



THE PRINTERS' LEAGUE OF AMERICA 

seems to him wrong in an office, his procedure is to go 
down to the Union rooms and write to the executive 
committee of the local League, setting forth his com- 
plaint. The executive committee takes it up, and per- 
haps agrees that the complaint is good and the condi- 
tion is remedied; or if they decide in favor of the 
employer, and fail to convince the business agent that 
there is no grievance, the matter goes to a conference 
committee consisting of three employers and three em- 
ployees. If these fail to agree on a decision, the ques- 
tion is referred to an arbitrator, and in eleven years' 
experience with four unions only twice have matters 
gone to arbitration. 

In arbitrations it has been the rule to select as the 
odd man some one in the trade, who understands condi- 
tions. Both employers and employees have served as 
arbitrators with satisfaction. An appeal to national 
arbitration is provided for, but this has never been 
necessary. 

I have myself been down to Union meetings in New 
York probably a hundred times, and tried to make clear 
the position of the employer and what he can grant to 
employees and what he cannot. I have been received 
everywhere with the utmost respect, and listened to 
with gratifying attention. The men have been satisfied 
that I told them the truth, and on one occasion, when I 
went before the Franklin Association, or press- feeders' 
union, and called their attention to the fact that their 
wages had been raised faster than any other New York 
Union, and that they were making a demand for more 
money at a time when employers were least able to 
grant it, I had the satisfaction of knowing later that 

319 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

they voted to negotiate a "raise" by a majority of only 
three votes, showing that I won over almost 50 per cent, 
to see our side of the case. 

Time and again I have told the Union members that 
it is impossible for them to take anything out of the 
employer's pocket more than they put in. It is abso- 
lutely necessary for them to produce, if we are going 
to have any business at all; and if business stops it 
stops them as well as the employer; that they are half 
partners in any business, because they take the first 
half of the money that comes in, and they get theirs 
whether or not the employer gets any. Since 40 per 
cent, of receipts is eaten up in overhead charges, there 
remains but ten per cent., and the only question is 
whether the employer shall take this, or whether the 
workmen will quarrel with him about it, and demand a 
further share. Considering that the employer has to 
gamble for his 10 per cent., and does not always get it, 
is-it worth while to try to take any of it from him? Is 
it not' better to try and increase production, so that the 
total may be larger, and the employees' half therefore 
greater? 

Working with the Unions on these lines, the League 
has served as an educator to both sides, and neither 
employers nor employed would dream of going back to 
the old conditions that existed before the League was 
organized. 

It is generally agreed that the Printers' League 
among other things, has gained for its members the 
following ten advantages: 

1. Absolutely undisturbed peace in and unhindered 
running of shops, enabling the making of agreements 

320 



THE PRINTERS' LEAGUE OF AMERICA 

with the assurance that no strike would prevent their 
execution. 

2. The members are guaranteed as good or better 
terms than other shops outside the League. 

3. An equitable apprenticeship system was estab- 
lished. 

4. A means of settling any and all disputes was 
worked out and operated successfully. 

5. All League shops working together under the Em- 
ployers* Court of Honor were banded together for their 
mutual protection and good. 

6. The League being recognized and endorsed by the 
International Unions the local administrations have the 
benefit of their steadying influence. 

7. In New York City where the League started there 
was a common interest developed to keep New York 
work at home where it belongs. 

8. League consultations by committee with local 
unions provided equal representation where legislation 
is proposed of local matters. 

9. The League stands for the best there is in Union- 
ism and has the full support of the Unions, so that both 
organizations cooperate to elevate the class of labor 
employed in League shops. 

10. Peace and harmony exist, strikes and lockouts 
are forgotten, arbitration of difficulties has proven a 
gain for both sides, and conciliation has reduced the 
previously existing friction to a minimum. 

After the principles of consultation, conciliation and 
arbitration had won out in New York, and the League 
methods became recognized as the best for dealing 
with the Unions, other cities began to come into line. 

321 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The employing printers of Toledo were threatened with 
a strike. I was in Chicago at the time, and hearing 
that the Toledo pressmen were going out, telegraphed, 
offering to stop there and explain the methods of the 
League. The employers who were then in session ad- 
journed until I could get there, and then took me into 
their conference. In a two or three hours' session I 
told them the whole story of our methods of avoiding 
friction with the Unions, and at their request I met 
a committee of the pressmen, who were soon satisfied 
that the League system of arbitration would give them 
justice. But the strike idea had gone too far to be 
wholly stifled, and the men went out for a day. In the 
meantime we had issued a charter to the Toledo em- 
ployers, and they organized a local branch of the 
League. The next day the men went back to work, and 
within a very short time all differences were adjusted 
to the satisfaction of all concerned. The Toledo local 
was organized with a membership of 15, and they have 
proven their loyalty to League principles. 

In Cincinnati the pressmen employees volunteered to 
solicit members for a League organization, and twelve 
employers were brought together at a happy time, as 
difficulties were impending that threatened a break if 
an understanding were not speedily consummated. 
After they were in working order, and had completed 
an agreement, Mr. Arthur Morgan, vice-president of 
the United States Printing & Litho Company, of that 
city, was kind enough to say that in organizing the 
Cincinnati League branch, I had contributed largely to 
their sense of security and comfort. They now have a 
membership of about 35. 

322 



THE PRINTERS' LEAGUE OF AMERICA 

Chicago has an Employing Printers' Association 
which originated about 1908, and which had already 
done some negotiating with the Unions. When the 
Printers' League of America was formed, they came 
into it as a body, retaining their local name. At last 
accounts their membership was 92. 

The sentiment developed in St. Louis through the 
Ben Franklin Club brought the printers together there, 
and in 1910, when I was West assisting in amalgamat- 
ing the Ben Franklin Clubs with the Typothetse, I was 
invited to stop at St. Louis, and assist them in organiz- 
ing a branch of the League, which I was glad to do. 
They have now a strong organization of 40 members. 

Louisville employers organized and came into the 
League of their own accord, having a prospect of a 
strike on their hands. They had learned of the League, 
and proceeded to make agreements on the Printers' 
League basis, and came into the national organization 
in a body. 

Cleveland has a local League organization of about 
40 members, organized in 1907, and Spokane is repre- 
sented by a League of five large printing houses. 

The Columbus Employing Printers got together on 
the principles of the Printers' League, but without ally- 
ing themselves with the organizations in the other cities 
named. They formed agreements with the Unions and 
then adjourned for four years, with seeming confidence 
that no troubles could arise. This has not seemed to 
the various branches of the League as a sound policy, 
for the Unions are in business, holding meetings all the 
year round, and with the best sort of agreement, dif- 
ferences of construction are likely to arise. 

323 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The original Printers' League of the City of New 
York became a local branch of the Printers' League of 
America in 1909, and in 1917 became a part of the 
Employing Printers' Association of New York. 

The national organization of the Printers' League 
was effected in September, 1909, under the title of the 
Printers' League of America. There are now (1917) 
eight branches or locals, with a total membership of 
313 employers, covering shops employing some twenty- 
five thousand workmen, and an invested capital of about 
$50,000,000. Their annual payrolls are upwards of 
$35,000,000. The New York League shops alone are 
credited with some $24,000,000 annual production. 

The national organization honored me by making me 
its first president, as the New York local had previously 
done, and it has been a pleasure for me to give the 
organization a great deal of my time. 

Having evolved a principle, not a name, it will be 
gratifying to state that there is every probability that 
this principle is being absorbed by the United Ty- 
pothetse and Franklin Clubs of America, and a ten- 
year arbitration agreement between the International 
Typographical Union and the above-mentioned body of 
employers has been promulgated. Other international 
bodies will no doubt soon follow suit. 



324 



Estimating and Price-Making 

SAMUEL REES, the veteran printer of Omaha, 
tells this story of his first experiences in price- 
making : 

"In 1870 I was working as a job hand in what was 
then the largest printing office in St. Joseph, Missouri. 
The foreman, formerly of Boston, and then of Chicago, 
made most of the estimates. He was a wiseacre — in 
fact knew it all — and when he looked over the book, he 
remarked that it was absurd to think of making a price- 
list for printing — that any printer should be able to 
make a price. 

"Notwithstanding this, he shortly afterward got up .a 
price-list for the smaller work, and though it was none 
of my business, the prices were so absurd that I felt 
it my duty to take the list to the proprietor, who was a 
personal friend, and point out its faults. The list 
started with 500 copies, and then continued with 1,000, 
and additional 500s. In most cases the advance on the 
larger quantities would not pay for the additional paper 
used." 

Such were the conditions in many cities during the 
last century. Only since 1900 can the trade be said to 
have begun scientific price-making. 

The entire problem of estimating or making prices 
in advance on printing is a matter of knowing cost and 
adding a profit. The sum of the difficulties encountered 
is in knowing the costs. They cannot be known abso- 
lutely in advance, because printers are not endowed 
with the gift of prophecy. Wonder has sometimes 

325 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

been expressed at the wide difference in printers' esti- 
mates. Those who have tried it aver that almost any 
job sent to a dozen different printers for estimate will 
sometimes show a variation of much more than 100 per 
cent. Yet is it not probable that if such a test job were 
put through these dozen different offices, and exact 
records kept, that the cost would be found to differ 100 
per cent., and very likely the quality also? 

The overhead charges in printing establishments vary 
from ten to fifty per cent in extreme instances. Some 
houses pay salesmen ten per cent, to get their work, 
and some have a line of trade that comes to them. Some 
printeries have expensive office forces, and some do 
not even have a desk. Some proprietors draw $15,000 
a year and some are glad to get $20 a week. Some 
fill up a job room with two-thirders and others have 
a corps of men all paid above the scale. Printing ink 
is sold at from 15 cents to $5 a pound ; paper at 8 cents 
to 50 cents; a second-hand old drum cylinder can be 
bought for $300, where a modern press of the same 
size is worth $5,000. A job may be set from a case of 
type worth $15 or on a linotype worth $5,000. A book 
may be bound wholly by hand labor, or by utilizing $50,- 
000 worth of machinery. Obviously we cannot and 
should not expect uniformity under such a multiplicity 
of varying conditions. 

Take linotype composition : It has been sold in vari- 
ous places on the galley as low as 25 and 35 cents per 
1,000 ems; there are a few who still sell it as low as 45 
cents; yet it is a fact that high-grade magazine com- 
position, produced in a large city, under rush condi- 
tions, has cost over 65 cents for a period of years in one 

326 



ESTIMATING AND PRICE-MAKING 

well-equipped metropolitan printery. The chief differ- 
ence between this 60-cent and 45-cent composition is in 
the quality. The high-priced stuff is cast in slugs de- 
signed to bear 75,000 impressions ; the cheap stuff is in 
any old metal, and suitable only for short runs. The 
higher grade is set by educated men, and read and cor- 
rected to an accurate style. A single reading and cor- 
rection of matter, done in the best style, may easily add 
10 cents per 1,000 to the cost. Yet these features of 
added cost are seldom alluded to. Make-up of the mat- 
ter may add 5 to 15 cents per 1,000 ems; the handling 
of a few extra proofs at intervals of a few days, in- 
volving bringing out all the galleys, proving and return- 
ing them to storage, may mean several cents more 
added to the per thousand cost. 

Then there are the conditions incidental to tabular 
and objectionable matter, unusual style, poor copy, and 
a dozen other things, each of which varies the cost of 
machine composition. The Cost Committee of the Chi- 
cago Ben Franklin Club at one meeting asked its mem- 
bers to individually estimate the cost of composition on 
one of their own blank forms, copies of which lay on the 
table. The matter was intricate, involving several ta- 
bles, but the committee were all experts. The estimate 
was made by hours, and varied 300 per cent. On a 
large job of difficult tabular work upon which ten or 
fifteen men worked, on one day one man turned in 
just five times as much composition as the lowest man 
of the lot. 

A similar variation of costs exists in the pressroom. 
Two forms of the same size with the same number of 
cuts may easily vary from two hours to two days in the 

327 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

time of make-ready. When the time-sheets of a press- 
room show that one cylinder delivered 25,000 impres- 
sions one week and its twin standing alongside, opera- 
ted under similar conditions at the same cost delivered 
60,000 sheets, how is any estimator going to calculate 
exactly what will be the time and cost of the runs on 
these machines the following week? 

We do have flat prices for electrotyping, but engrav- 
ings vary fully 50 per cent, in cost, depending largely 
on the degree of re-etching. When bookbinding was 
done mainly by piecework, we knew pretty nearly what 
it would cost, but in these days of machine work, though 
costs are lessened, they vary enormously with the shop 
conditions, so that many jobs cost 50 per cent, more to 
produce in one shop than in another. In the Charles 
Francis Press eight kinds (sixteen in all) of folding 
machines are found necessary to handle ten requisite 
varieties of work. 

These chaotic conditions seem to have been almost 
lost sight of by some experienced in cost systems. To 
look over some of these elaborate creations, one would 
scarcely doubt there could be differences of opinion of 
more than ten per cent, as to costs. Yet some small 
printer will get hold of one of these, observe that the 
cost of hand composition is $1.65 per hour, and then go 
right to his counter and agree with a customer to re- 
duce the charge for corrections on a job to 75 cents per 
hour. Let us admit that while cost systems are beauti- 
ful in theory, and serve to educate many, they cannot 
entirely settle the problems of estimating and price- 
making, because these go deeper into the very roots 
of human nature. 

328 



ESTIMATING AND PRICE-MAKING 

There will be no attempt here to present or analyze 
cost systems and cost finding. The reader who wishes 
to delve into these had best apply to the United Typo- 
thetae and Franklin Clubs of America, at the Estima- 
ting Department, in Indianapolis. The School of 
Printing there has done commendable work in cost find- 
ing, and furnishes information at nominal cost. Stand- 
ard cost-finding blanks and a standard price list are 
issued. • 

The endeavor here is to deal with principles, not 
figures, and to call attention to the wide differences in 
actual costs, and the impossibility of figuring anything 
down to absolute accuracy of estimate. There always 
must be wide differences in actual costs, and therefore 
we have to learn to base our prices on average costs. 
It is desirable that all the printers of a locality should 
have as near uniform prices as is consistent with the 
class of work they execute. If letter-heads are selling 
at $4 per 1,000, what does Mr. Customer care about 
your showing him a cost-sheet to prove that your cost 
is really $4.47 per 1,000 Unless he thinks you will 
do them better he will go across the street to the 
fellow who is printing them for $4. This is the 
problem we have to meet in the printing business con- 
tinually. 

It may help some to remark on the way the railroads 
meet this problem. They do not figure freight-carrying 
costs at all but charge "what the traffic will bear," and 
what the law will allow. They will charge three times 
as much for transporting a case of books or a case of 
shoes as the same weight of brick or coal, because they 
know the brick or coal will not travel at all if they put 

329 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

on a charge of a cent a pound, that will hardly be felt 
on books or shoes. Nearly all their cost is overhead, 
so they totally disregard the direct costs, and merely 
aim to get in more money during a year than they pay 
out. 

Since the overhead or indirect charges in printing 
have risen to be larger than the direct time charges, it 
is a question in how far the railroad method of charging 
what one can get is justified. It would help business 
if the printers of each city and locality, and specialists 
who find themselves in competition, would maintain 
closer understandings as to the bases of their estimates. 
If a group of printers can agree that minimum costs of 
machine composition on the galley, are 50 cents for 
newspaper work, 60c for book work, and 70c for MS. 
copy wanted in a rush, and set to a style, plus 15 to 25 
per cent, for make-up, and it is generally accepted that 
these represent minimum or cost, and that the printer 
shall add for extras, as well as for profit, then a fair 
basis is arrived at for making estimates which may be 
somewhere near uniform when they reach the cus- 
tomer. 

The education that counts for the most is that which 
teaches a printer to actually know his costs, and here 
the cost-finding blanks .help. Next comes the inculca- 
ting of the idea that average minimum prices must be 
fixed in a locality if anybody is going to make any 
profit. Finally the printer has to have the nerve to 
charge the right price, and the ability to get it out of 
the customer. 

In practice things will not work out as they should in 
theory. It is undoubtedly true that the Charles Francis 

330 



ESTIMATING AND PRICE-MAKING 

Press ought to make ten per cent, on all its type com- 
position. But it may as well be admitted that for years 
we have found ourselves obliged to do machine com- 
position very little above the actual cost to meet com- 
petition and keep the presses busy. Only by installing 
numerous new fast presses which were ahead of the 
machinery used by very many of our competitors has 
it been found possible to compete and make a profit. 

Taking display composition at so much a page is very 
much like buying stocks on a margin — you never can 
tell how you are going to come out until the end. Yet 
there is no middle course between the flat page price 
and charging the customer by the hour. Customers 
object to time charges ; they want to know in advance 
just what they are liable for, and therefore guessing at 
the average time appears an endless performance for 
the printer. 

By maintaining actual records in one's own shop, 
and using these for calculation in making new esti- 
mates, the printer has the best guide he can get. But 
if a job presents new features, the time is very apt to be 
underestimated. The workmen almost invariably un- 
derestimate the time a job will take, if put up to them 
as a query. The estimator should never forget that 
something is always happening to prevent jobs going 
through the shop smoothly. The average job may be 
said to present average delays of probably 15 per cent. 
It becomes possible to set a nearly average price on 
routine work that is done in the same way day after 
day. Yet while every job presents some routine fea- 
tures, most jobs also present individual problems that 
may or may not work out smoothly. 

331 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

A little print-shop talk will illustrate this: 

"Will those blanks be ready for Smith Tuesday?" 

"No, we couldn't match the stock and the jobber has 
sent to the mill for another lot." 

"How on earth did it come to take 47 'hours to run 
this lot of circulars?" 

"We had bad luck. The paper was flaky, and pulled 
off, and it was run in that hot moist week, when the 
rollers were all sticky. Then a corner broke off the 
electro, and we had to wait for a new one." 

"I hear Jones is kicking about his book. What's 
the matter?" 

"He claims he told us to set all the quotations solid, 
and they are set on leaded slugs, so the job won't make 
up into 64 pages as he thought, and he insists we should 
bear the cost of resetting to make it come in." 

Who among us has not met with hundreds of such 
experiences, and yet who places in his estimates any 
allowance for blunders, errors, misunderstandings and 
things that go wrong? 

J. Cliff Dando, of Philadelphia, in a trade paper, a 
few years ago, called attention to the fact that there 
were 41 items forming a part of the cost of a job of 
composition, and that the printer could not get away 
from any of them, yet the most of these items never 
appear in an estimate, and hence are apt to be over- 
looked. The trade has become accustomed to lump the 
small items together as "overhead" charges, and when 
business is very dull, and a printer really has got to 
have some work to keep busy the men whom he cannot 
afford to lay off, he is all too apt to drop off the over- 
head. And perhaps next day he will attend a meeting 

332 



ESTIMATING AND PRICE-MAKING 

of employing printers, and lament with them about the 
hard times and cut prices that rule, utterly oblivious to 
the fact that he and others like him are making times 
hard and prices unremunerative. 

The practice of taking such fillers is not confined to 
small printers who presumedly don't know. One of the 
largest and best-known printers in the country admit- 
ted in an open discussion that in very hard times he 
had taken work for a large web machine that should 
command $60 a day, at $30 and $35 a day. Here was a 
man who knew all about cost systems, had helped to 
develop them, contributing both of his time, advice and 
money, but when he gets a little pinched he takes the 
price he can get. He does the same thing as the little 
fellow who wants a job more than he wants to make 
money out of it. 

The purpose of all this rather pessimistic talk is to 
emphasize the fact that it is not altogether ignorance 
nor foolishness that causes so much undercutting. It 
is close competition, combined with the uncertainty of 
actual cost, that invites the printer to make low esti- 
mates. 

To obviate this tendency, it is well for all of us to 
bear a few fundamental facts in mind : 

The average hand compositor sets 550 ems an hour, 
not 1000. 

Somebody has got to distribute the type or pay for 
recasting. 

The average machine compositor in book and job of- 
fices sets less than 3000 ems an hour. Of course he 
can set 5000, but idle time and proofs must be reckoned 
with. 

333 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The average job press delivers 600 impressions an 
hour, and not the 1500 an hour that the feeder will tell 
you he can do. 

The average cylinder press produces 575 sheets an 
hour, though it will stand a speed of 1800. 

The average man will take one-third more time than 
he thinks he will to do a given job. 

The average foreman will underestimate the time at 
least 25 per cent. 

To composition you must always add the cost of 
proving, handling, reading and correcting at least two 
sets of proofs, and often a third. 

To presswork you must add the costs of spoilage, 
breakages, ink, and a sinking fund to replace the ma- 
chine's cost. 

General expense or overhead is no longer one-half, 
but 120 to 150 per cent, of the direct costs of composi- 
tion and presswork. 

When you pay a linotyper or a pressman a dollar you 
need to get $2.50 from the customer if you are going to 
have 25 cents left for yourself. 

The printer who will keep the above things in mind 
will find it easier to resist the pressure to make low 
figures, for he will realize that he is losing money by 
accepting sophistry and neglecting hard, cold facts. 

And now we arrive at the crux of the whole matter : 
It is useless to estimate on so-called cheap work for it 
will always be done at about or below cost. 

The only way to make money in the printing business 
is to do work a little better, finish it a little more 
promptly, and make fewer blunders than others. Then 
you can charge the great public a little more than your 

334 



ESTIMATING AND PRICE-MAKING 

competitors, and they will stand for it because they 
like your work. 

Making an estimate in a hurry is a grave error. The 
customer who asks you to make figures on a $5,000 job 
during a half-hour talk at his desk either does not un- 
derstand how impossible it is for you to do it right in 
the time, or else he is hoping to trap you into error to 
have a low figure with which to pound down the price 
of another printer. The only safe rule is to make such 
estimates in the quiet of the private office, and have 
the figures checked before submitting. 

It is unwise to make a total price for a book" or cata- 
log without qualifying it according to the number of 
pages; or for a reprint from electros without specify- 
ing for corrections or remedying battered electros. An 
extra form on the former or a few broken electros of 
the latter might eat up all your profit margin. Do not 
close on a job until you see and examine the copy 
and drawings or cuts. A little difficult or intricate 
copy, or cuts costly to make-ready, may turn possible 
profit into loss. 

Color work is very deceptive even to those who have 
handled much of it. A very usual mistake is to esti- 
mate a three- or four-color job on a basis of running 
large forms, and then to find it impossible to make reg- 
ister except in small forms. Another common error is 
to gamble that a job will go through without slipsheet- 
ing, and then find it essential. More than one good 
printer has been caught in agreeing to match a sample 
of color work, and later finding that the effect is only 
to be had by running one color twice through the press. 
It is often impossible to match the colors on engraver's 

335 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

proofs, as when running a set of three-color plates in 
one form. 

We have been given work with instructions to match 
engraver's proofs, only to learn later that the engraver 
used an ink twice as stiff as could be used on a four- 
roller cylinder; even double rolling would not compen- 
sate for the difference. 

If offered a job that can be done economically only on 
a Harris or other special job press, do not try to figure 
it out for a cylinder. Either decline to estimate, or get 
a figure from the printer who has the right press. It 
is always questionable to figure on work you are not 
well equipped for handling, unless you run a shop that 
farms out most of its work. 

It is best not to estimate at all on small work. Tell 
the customer you will know the cost only when it is 
done, but that you will use him right as you want his 
trade. There are times when it is better not to estimate 
on large work. We have taken in several publications 
at the Charles Francis Press without estimate or a 
word being said as to price. In each instance the cus- 
tomers had had work done by us to a sufficient amount 
to familiarize them with our charges and service. They 
had confidence that we would be fair. And is not that 
all that any good customer desires? He asks your 
prices largely to know what his cost is to be; if he 
trusts you, he is willing to wait for the price until the 
job is finished, just as you are willing to wait for your 
pay until the job is printed, if you have confidence in 
him. 

Two men should be made responsible for every esti- 
mate, either working separately or one checking the 

336 



ESTIMATING AND PRICE-MAKING 

work of the other. This is the only safeguard against 
serious and costly blunders. It is well to have a simple 
method of checking your figures by a different sort of 
calculation from the primary one. For instance, after 
figuring the paper for a catalog, take a dummy and 
weigh it on an accurate scale, and multiply by the edi- 
tion and the pound price of the paper, and see if it tal- 
lies with your estimate. Thus you may avoid that oft- 
repeated error of halving or doubling the quantity of 
paper for the job. 

Check up and see if you have figured the right num- 
ber of forms, and whether the make-ready is charged 
for every form. Such things have happened as its 
being figured only on the first form. It is also easy to 
forget that paper has to be printed on both sides, and 
so get in only half the presswork. A prolific source 
of blunders in estimating comes from asking somebody 
over the phone for an offhand figure on some detail. 
About one time in four such communication is not fully 
understood and the wrong price results. 

Uniform specifications are important for correct es- 
timating. How else can you be sure that others are 
putting in the same paper or duplicating other details 
of your estimate, unless each item is framed in the 
same way? If all printers would use the same forms 
for estimates, and figure on the same principles, there 
would be less discrepancy in figures. 

The evil of being worked for estimates by business 
houses that only want your figures to check up some 
other fellow's is one continually met. Not infrequently 
the printer is induced to give up $5 or $10 or $25 worth 
of time to making a price on a job that is already 

337 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

printed, simply because the ostensible customer wants 
to know whether or not he has been overcharged, and he 
is not man enough to state his case and offer to pay for 
the advice. No way of meeting this evil has been sug- 
gested except to charge for estimates; this has never 
been found practicable. The same difficulty exists in 
other contracting trades. 

A reprehensible practice is to invite dummies for a 
tasteful job, and then turn over all the dummies sub- 
mitted to the successful bidder, for him to use any 
ideas he can. Dummies should be returned to the bid- 
der unless purchased from him ; they are the property 
of the bidder. Every careful printer will insist on the 
return of his dummies. 



338 



Service, Efficiency and Specialization 

IN these days we hear much of "Service" given with 
printing. Some of it is real, efficient service, and 
some of it simply travels under that name. The 
dictionary defines "Efficiency" as the quality of exercis- 
ing effective power; the possession of adequate skill or 
knowledge and its exercise in full measure ; the having 
of power and the using of it for results. Service is de- 
fined as work done for the benefit of another; the act 
of helping or promoting another's interests in any way. 
Efficient Service may be regarded as a combination of 
all these things, and it should be the aim of every print- 
er to furnish his customers with this sort of service. 

A more specific definition of Service, as called for 
in a printery of the first class, in 1917, is — 

Service consists in giving efficient attention to de- 
tails other than mere printing — in handling all the 
work in a plant with a trained force of men, opera- 
ting the latest machinery ; the delivery of all proofs 
in good style, and on time; handling everything 
with a margin or leeway great enough to cover ac- 
cidents, emergencies and additions; the supplying 
of experts for any contingent work the customer 
may desire, and the positive delivery of the entire 
job at the time and place specified, without any 
excuses whatsoever. 

No printer can give good service unless he special- 
izes on a few things requiring the same class of ma- 
chinery and workmen. Printing has become more and 
more a specialized business. The manufacture of drug 

339 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

labels was one of the earliest things to be specialized 
and taken out of the hands of the general printer; 
fruit-can labels followed ; then the entire label business 
was absorbed by specialists. Poster printing grew on 
the theatrical trade, and is carried on almost entirely 
by houses that do nothing else. A special press was 
designed for railway tickets at least fifty years ago, 
and the manufacture of time-tables involved so many 
intricacies that railway printers became established. 
Directory printing has also been specialized in the 
larger cities. City printing and political work at first 
went to newspapers, but has gradually worked into the 
hands of printing houses owned and run by men who 
are in politics, and know how to control the business. 

The magazine and periodical printer is a development 
of the last thirty years, and improvements in machin- 
ery have come so rapidly that it is now practically use- 
less for a house to enter this field without a large equip- 
ment of cylinder, web and rotary presses, color ma- 
chines and linotypes, besides batteries of folders and 
feeders, and many minor conveniences which have been 
found essential to economical production. 

The large catalog or big-edition printer is a mod- 
ern development. This line of work involves conveni- 
ences for making plates and printing long runs in black 
and colors. It may be combined with periodical print- 
ing, since it utilizes the same sort of machinery. 

The extra high-grade booklet and catalog work 
with expensive drawings, engravings and color inserts, 
and gorgeous covers, has been the basis of an increas- 
ing number of specialized printeries in the large cities 
during the past twenty-five years. They are closely in 

340 



SERVICE, EFFICIENCY AND SPECIALIZATION 

line with a class of smaller shops that originate and de- 
sign beautiful printing, but do not have all the facili- 
ties for the mechanical work or for printing long runs, 
and who are thus more expert overseers of fine work 
than executors of the same ; while the large high-class 
booklet and catalog shop aims to do everything in its 
own establishment. 

Books require a special class of machine composition 
with convenient access to a platemaker, presses adapted 
to both long and short runs, and good binding and 
storage equipment. They can no longer be made eco- 
nomically in any sort of printing office. The efficient 
book printer is ready at any time to produce 100,000 
copies of a popular seller on short notice. 

The rush printer who handles almost anything that 
is in a hurry also has his place of usefulness among the 
specialty offices. He frequently prints newspapers of 
small circulation, sometimes even daily newspapers. 
The successful daily newspapers, however, almost in- 
variably own their own plants, their regularity of pro- 
duction enabling them to keep their men busy all the 
time. But, since daily newspaper pressroom equipment 
became so costly, it is not uncommon for some news- 
paper offices to do the composition and print other 
newspapers in the hours their expensive machinery 
would otherwise be idle. 

The private printing plant is distinctively of special 
character. It is profitable only to concerns having 
enough work to keep several machines busy all the 
time, and desirable for those whose work demands 
special training. It is usually a mistake, however, for 
a private plant, established to do the work of the own- 

341 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

ers, to engage in general commercial work, to fill in 
unoccupied time. Such plants rarely run more than a 
few years, and are then closed out at a loss. The con- 
cern that cannot keep a private printing plant busy 
with its own work should be without a plant. 

Sticking to one business at a time is the wise plan, 
rather than trying to go into allied work, unless con- 
ditions force you, from the viewpoint of service. The 
average publisher is better off to buy his printing be- 
cause he gets a better service from the printer who 
specializes in his class of work. And the average print- 
er is better off to buy his electrotyping, because the 
service is better from a large commercial electrotype 
foundry than he can hope to have in one of his own. 
But when better service demands adding an auxiliary 
business it becomes good policy, though requiring to be 
undertaken with care. For illustration : Years ago the 
Charles Francis Press found its binding service, pur- 
chased outside, was unsatisfactory. I therefore bought 
a small bindery and developed it as the Waverly Bind- 
ery. In the course of time it began to pay, and I then 
turned it into the printing company; had it not paid 
it never would have been amalgamated with the print- 
ing company. Thus the chances of its hampering or 
endangering the printing company were avoided. 

An increasing number of firms specialize on paper 
box wrappers and cartons, calendars, colored picture 
cards and art novelties; others in law printing and 
legal blanks ; others in stock certificates and outfits for 
new corporations ; in lithography or offset printing ; in 
loose leaf or blank book manufacture ; in street-car ad- 
vertising cards; in cheap circulars, folders and hand- 

342 



SERVICE, EFFICIENCY AND SPECIALIZATION 

bills; in wedding stationery, calling cards, and so on 
indefinitely. Even the little nickeled press one sees in 
windows of small stores, delivering a few hundred 
small cards at a low price, is a feature of specialization 
in printing. 

When it is remembered that printing in the United 
States has increased in value twenty times in fifty 
years, and that because of improved machinery it has 
increased in volume or quantity at least forty times, 
or four thousand per cent., it will be the more readily 
understood that it must differentiate more and more, 
and become split up into branches and specialties as the 
years go by. The well-informed customer learned some 
time ago that before placing any large orders it was 
well to look into the printer's plant, and see with his 
own eyes whether he had the equipment for handling 
to advantage the class of work involved. Of necessity 
the customer must now seek the class of printing office 
that specializes in his class of work ; otherwise he will 
be at a disadvantage. 

There are still thousands of printing offices that ad- 
vertise to do anything, using the old slogan — "No job 
too large or too small" — but such appear to have ceased 
to make any money. The do-anything-that-comes-along 
offices are essential in towns and small cities, and a few 
of them are local conveniences in large cities. But the 
printer who aims to have a real business, and to build 
up and thrive, requires to specialize on something, to 
train his help to do that class of work, and to secure 
the kind of machines that will handle his specialty to 
the best advantage. If I may be excused for offering 
advice to those printers who are not satisfied with the 

343 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

progress of their establishments, it is that the best 
way to make a printery pay is to look around for a 
specialty, find some branch of work that is not well 
taken care of, and go after it and do it, if possible, 
better than any one else in the vicinity. 

A Western printer wrote me asking advice on the 
matter of specializing in art printing and advertising, 
and looking up my file I find that I wrote him substan- 
tially as follows: 

1. Change your name to something that describes 
your specialty, or let the statement Advertising and 
Art Printing immediately follow your name in all your 
announcements. 

2. Since you have equipped for color printing, I 
would endeavor to open up arrangements with writers, 
artists and solicitors in art printing and advertising, 
and to educate the public to a higher class of printing, 
and making combinations of lithography with printing 
for color effects. 

3. Do not lose sight of commercial printing while 
developing this art line, as you will probably need it 
to keep your force in action. 

4. Get up some suggestions and dummies for one 
or two concerns that you think might be interested, and 
get them to give you the chance to make really fine 
jobs. Perhaps some high-class hotel or automobile 
manufacturer would be available. In your propositions 
include the writing, cuts, dummies, printing, binding, 
in fact a whole advertising campaign. 

This line of specialty is developing very fast in cities 
where there are growing factories, but requires special 
talent in both advertising and art printing. 

344 



SERVICE, EFFICIENCY AND SPECIALIZATION 

At various periods in my experience I have run shops 
devoted to miscellaneous work, anything that we could 
get, and I have specialized in drug labels, posters, sheet 
music, and periodicals and large catalogs. I could 
not handle much large work until I had a large plant, 
and in developing into the printing of large editions, it 
was obligatory to make some sacrifices. At times we 
had to throw out really good machines because we had 
not the work to keep them busy, and to get the work 
for them involved a departure from the line of special- 
izing that seemed most advantageous to the plant. 

Twice during the development of the Charles Francis 
Press it has been necessary to purchase between $70,- 
000 and $100,000 worth of machinery practically at one 
time, but in each case we knew pretty nearly where the 
work was coming from to keep the presses busy, and so 
were able to clear off the debt before long. Had the 
plant been forced to depend on miscellaneous work, 
anything from a three-color job to a poster, I am con- 
fident it never could have been all paid for. But be- 
cause, as the plant grew, we specialized in magazines, 
long runs and color printing, and because we gave a 
service that held our customers, and because their 
businesses grew also, it has been possible to bring to- 
gether one of the larger plants of the metropolis, and 
in the face of strong competition, to make it pay for 
itself. 

Service seems to be the strongest factor in building 
up a magazine and periodical trade. The publishers 
not only require issue on certain dates, but certain 
hours, to catch certain mails. One of our publications 
for several years is finished regularly, according to con- 

345 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

tract, at 2 A. M. Not many years ago monthly publi- 
cations were thought to be "near enough" if they were 
issued within three or four days of the set date. Now 
the conditions of both mail routes and news companies 
demand regularity, and clockwork delivery. 

One magazine publisher tells me that he calculates 
they lose $1000 a day for every day they are late on the 
newsstands. It figures out this way: the reader who 
has been in the habit of picking his favorite magazine 
off a certain stand at a regular time, in his disappoint- 
ment at not having his regular reading supply fre- 
quently will look over the other magazines, choose one 
and never come back for his favorite. Thus every 
day's delay not only means sales lost, but business 
handed right over to competitors. A magazine with 
100,000 newsstand sale might easily lose 15,000 sales 
by being three or four days late. 

In some cases, where magazines have large New 
York city circulations, the printer is called upon to de- 
liver the packages to many individual large stands, 
giving almost a news company service. Only by plac- 
ing the printing, binding, wrapping, mailing and de- 
livery all with the printer is it possible to get this clock- 
like service. A contractors' journal, containing the lat- 
est regular reports of building or other contracts, is of 
much reduced value if issued late. One daily publica- 
tion of this sort is delivered to the New York Post 
Offices absolutely at a set time every 24 hours, as each 
branch Post Office arranges to have it included in the 
first morning delivery. 

This necessity for service, this positivity of delivery 
with the regularity of mail trains and timepieces, is not 

346 



SERVICE, EFFICIENCY AND SPECIALIZATION 

confined to daily, weekly and monthly publications. 
Often political circulars or important business an- 
nouncements for direct mailing require to be in the 
mails on a set day and hour, or else they are robbed of 
half their value. The manufacturer's spring catalog 
that gets to the retailers ahead of others stands a bet- 
ter chance of being well read, and if it does not get 
there until his mind is made up on selections from other 
catalogs it has failed altogether. 

Every year a larger proportion of goods are seasonal 
— that is in demand according to the seasons. At first 
sight this would not seem to apply to machinery cata- 
logs; but when it is remembered that a majority of 
machines are used to manufacture things having a 
bearing on seasons, it is apparent that here too the 
seasonal demand holds good. Every printing office de- 
sires to instal its new presses during the dull summer 
season, so the time for printing press catalogs to be in 
the mail is early spring. The city hotel manager will 
not look at a catalog in December because he is too 
busy, and the summer hotel proprietor will not think 
of buying new supplies and furnishings before Feb- 
ruary or March. 

The more the catalog question is studied the more 
apparent becomes the importance of timing them to hit 
the possible customers when they are considering pur- 
chases. This is impossible unless the printer can be 
depended upon to push them through with machine- 
like regularity the moment he has the order to go 
ahead. 

This delivery of magazines and catalogs on set 
dates without falling down is exacting enough, but in 

347 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

connection with it comes the more trying demand that 
copy and cuts and advertisements be handled at the last 
possible minute. Only by building up a large force of 
workmen, all specialists, and establishing a thoroughly 
practical system, has it been possible to meet all these 
demands, and give entire satisfaction. 

It has been our constant effort to make efficiency and 
service synonymous. Each man's natural talents have 
been studied and utilized for certain sorts of work, until 
each was busied with the thing he could do best; then 
the endeavor was to keep them day in and day out — 
and often night after night — on the selfsame thing, un- 
til they acquired a degree of expertness not possible in 
shops where men do a greater variety of work. A man 
who locks up forms all day will do them twice as fast 
as an average printer, and with a certainty of accuracy 
not possible to the compositor who locks up only occa- 
sional forms. In my younger days when we were spe- 
cializing on posters, I remember one evening sending 
down nine forms — for three three-sheet posters, all for 
short runs, which were completed from start to finish 
in three hours, and representing the work of two men 
and a boy feeder. I did all the composition and lock-up 
and broke up the earlier forms to get the material for 
the later ones. In an average printery such a job 
would have taken twelve hours. 

By working on the same sort of thing over and over 
the best ways of handling each sort of work are devel- 
oped and used, and if it is possible to pick up new kinks 
from other offices we are prompt to make use of them, 
and just as ready to allow others to come in and study 
our methods for producing celerity and uniform speed. 

348 



SERVICE, EFFICIENCY AND SPECIALIZATION 

Only by such interchange of courtesies can improved 
methods be brought into general use. 

The supplying of service by a printing plant must be 
a development ; it cannot be accomplished at once by a 
new concern. It is of course possible to equip a new- 
plant for a special service, but a force of expert men 
to handle all details efficiently cannot be built up in a 
month. Time is required to find out where each man 
fits to the best advantage, and to familiarize him with 
the new environment. Some specialists can be hired 
ready-made, but most of them have to be developed 
right in the plant, and this means studying and utiliz- 
ing the natural ability that is in the shop, and leading 
each man to his best accomplishment. It can never be 
done by driving men; this is instinctively resented. 
Only by instilling in them the soundness of the princi- 
ple that the more each and all accomplish, the more is it 
possible for each to increase his own stipend ; only by 
developing the "one for all and all for one" feeling, 
can a crew of men be led to work harmoniously toward 
an end that yields the best results for everybody. 

One of the essentials to giving a satisfactory service 
is the thoughtful study of the customer's business, to 
learn just what each is trying to do, and just why he 
needs this and that at such times and places. When 
these things are well understood, work is apt to run 
smoothly. Lack of service often arises from ignorance 
of the customer's wants, or of the exact reason why it 
is important to him that a thing be done in a certain 
way at such a time; it is desirable that the thing in 
hand be looked at from the viewpoint of the customer 
if the product is to be satisfying. 

349 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

Here is an instance of slipshod methods: I have 
known a printer to charge a customer for fourteen 
hours' waiting time on a press, when if the waiting 
pressman had taken half a dozen slugs out of the form, 
and put on his coat and walked to the linotyper's to 
have them reset, all might have been moving along in 
an hour. This illustrates not only lack of harmony be- 
tween the composing room and the pressroom, but the 
impracticability of giving good service when the plant 
and accessories are not all under one roof. The printer 
who buys his composition from other's linotypes, may 
be delayed at every step of the work, and if he is also 
depending on an engraver in one place, an electrotyper 
in another, and a binder in another, it is obvious that he 
never can be sure of completing a job on time. The 
slowest of these several assistants in the allied trades 
determines the speed of the job. 

The Printing Crafts Building is a great aid to all the 
concerns within its commodious walls in the matter of 
service. With a hundred concerns in one structure, 
half of them printers of different sorts, besides engrav- 
ers, binders, electrotypers, specialty plants, etc., all un- 
der one roof, the ability of every firm in the building 
to give service is largely increased. It is likely that 
this bringing together of printers and allied trades will 
be more and more imitated in other cities, as the ad- 
vantages of the plan are manifest. Already there are 
a considerable number of structures where printers, 
binders and engravers or the like can be found in happy 
proximity, for the purpose of facilitating work. 

Nothing but ceaseless vigilance on the part of an 
entire printing house force keeps work moving rightly. 

350 



SERVICE, EFFICIENCY AND SPECIALIZATION 

Every man, boy and girl must be made to realize his or 
her responsibility for the work that passes through in- 
dividual hands. The proofreaders cannot keep every- 
thing right; they have troubles enough of their own. 
Accuracy in counting, accuracy in following instruc- 
tions, accuracy in making up and locking up, accuracy 
in handling revises, and in a thousand other things is 
essential to the final satisfactory result. If the stockman 
runs the wrong lot of paper to the press, if the pressman 
turns a cut in underlaying, if there are a few loose type 
in a form, if the uncorrected electro is used instead of 
the corrected one, if the wrong ink is put in the foun- 
tain, if the sheets are partially backed up wrong end to, 
if the time for delivery is overlooked, if any one of 
scores of similar things are allowed to occur, a large job 
may be as thoroughly damaged as if the office devil had 
put in all the corrected slugs without reading them and 
they had gone to press without revision. 

No trade offers more opportunities for errors or 
omissions than printing, and only a constant system of 
checks and revises, with unceasing watchfulness, and 
the development of the habit of looking for possible 
blunders, will prevent their occurrence. The job ticket 
was developed to insure each job's being done accord- 
ing to instructions in all details; but efficient service 
goes far beyond the mere mechanical job ticket's pos- 
sibilities, and thinks, for only by concentrating atten- 
tion on and having a genuine interest in the completion 
of work with entire satisfaction, can the highest serv- 
ice be attained. 

The printer who gives service cannot afford also to 
make the lowest price, and must expect often to lose 

351 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

work to lower bidders. But it is a source of joy at 
times to see one who has been wooed away by a lower 
price coming back and saying, "We are glad to get back 
with the printer upon whom we know we can depend 
at all times." When the customer tells you that he has 
requests for estimates every week from other sources 
and wastebaskets all of them, you know that you have 
succeeded in giving him what he wants, and that he 
recognizes that work and service must be bought to- 
gether, and that the man who makes the lowest bid 
never can afford to give with the work the service the 
customer would like to have. 

Good printers are common, but deliverers of good 
service are scarce, and as the exigencies of business in- 
crease, the demands on the publisher and consequently 
the printer are greater each year, and the publisher 
who finds that he can lean on a printer, and receive cor- 
dial and intelligent support when he most needs it, will 
not lightly discard the business ties that chain him to 
that printery. 

Brains — ideas — initiative — are the three best-paid 
products of the publisher and printer in the field to- 
day. Just mere mechanical perfection is a competitive 
proposition, and goes for the best price obtainable. 
When you add all these together in one establishment 
you can count on — results. 



352 



Reciprocity 



THE printing trade has been carried forward on 
competing principles for many years, and there 
is yet existent far more idea of competition than 
there is of the newer and wiser principle of reciprocity. 
Some call it cooperation. It matters not what name we 
give it, so long as the thing is understood and acted 
upon. 

Civilization and business evolute and develop much 
as men, continents and worlds progress ; they must pass 
through lower stages to reach the higher. Competition 
is an early or lower stage of business, comparable to 
the tribal civilization that preceded organized govern- 
ment. The tribes learned that they were stronger when 
they cooperated, and gradually there grew up imperial 
states. Later these states became allied, and next we 
find federations and groups of allied nations. Thus have 
the ideas of cooperation and reciprocity grown in the 
history of peoples. 

And so it is in the printing industry. The unions of 
workers brought together the master printers, and now 
we find numerous associations which the printer is 
asked to join, for the sake of cooperating with his fel- 
low-printers along some line of mutual interest. Lat- 
terly there appears a tendency of the associations to 
amalgamation, and the era of recognized reciprocity 
dawns. Those who get into these movements first, and 
who are most willing to give of their time and effort 
to developing benefits for the trade as a whole, are the 
first to profit by reciprocity or cooperation, but we have 

353 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

still a very long way to go, as the idea is only in its 
infancy. 

Printing is becoming more and more a specialized 
business, and as various plants develop on their individ- 
ual lines, seeking only one or two classes of work, they 
find themselves continually obliged to pass by orders 
for other sorts of printing. Here is the opportunity for 
increased reciprocity. Let the magazine printer send 
the customer for colored labels to a specialty house; 
and the book printer forward inquiries for booklets 
to a booklet house, and let the stationer refer the news- 
paper job to a newspaper printer, and so on around 
the circle of specialties. This idea is already well un- 
der operation in the Printing Crafts Building, where 
some scores of various sorts of printers and allied 
trades operate under one roof. Gradually it comes to 
be understood that by this method any printer who is 
well thought of gets the sort of trade he wants and is 
best fitted to do, and each has sent to him as much trade 
as he sends away. This is real reciprocity. 

The Rotary Clubs have developed reciprocity between 
concerns in different trades and businesses, and have 
made a practical success in most large cities. In their 
organization, the tailor boosts the restaurant, the pho- 
tographer, the plumber, the printer, the electrician, 
the insurance man, etc., and all boost the others in re- 
turn, all around the circle of two or three hundred 
trades and professions. Each Rotarian gets trade by 
giving trade; there ought to be more of them. With 
twenty-five kinds of specialization among the printers 
the same sort of exchange trade becomes practicable, 
and is already exercised to a considerable extent. 

354 



RECIPROCITY 

Ever since the Charles Francis Press developed into 
a magazine and catalogue, color-printing, and long-run 
house, we have systematically turned away small work, 
and directed inquiries to neighboring platen press and 
stationery printers. In turn these offices have sent 
many long runs to us. We found this better and sim- 
pler than trying to extract commissions from work sent 
to others. This is not intended as a reflection on those 
who accept such commissions, or who take orders for 
printing and farm them out. The house that takes or- 
ders for almost any sort of printing, engraving and 
binding, handles the detail, adds advertising value, and 
places the work where it can be handled most economi- 
cally and efficiently, has its proper place in the trade. 
Such are properly jobbers in printing, and earn their 
commissions by placing their knowledge of conditions 
at the disposal of the customer. 

The time will come when a really great big organizer 
will appear in the American printing trade, of the sort 
advocated by Mr. Stillson in another chapter — a $50,- 
000 a year man, who will find his vocation in develop- 
ing this reciprocity to the limit. No more attractive 
field awaits the potential captain of industry who has 
the requisite talent. Such a man might first take the 
two great printing centers of New York and Chicago, 
and the tributary territory, and classify the large plants 
according to the character of their machinery, facilities 
and output. He could then work out a plan for dis- 
tributing the large work of the country to the best ad- 
vantage for all concerned, reducing costs and produc- 
ing at the best centers for mailing. It could be made 
so apparent to all that there was more money in reci- 

355 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

procity than in competition that they would fall into 
line. 

Under present conditions the printing trade is some- 
times worked by clever men to its own hurt. A typi- 
cal case is that of a large manufacturer who bought 
quantities of printing requiring certain machinery for 
its economical production. It was all given to one con- 
cern, with very cordial treatment, so the printer most 
cheerfully spent perhaps $50,000 to $75,000 fitting 
up to handle this work. He was treated so handsomely, 
that he felt he had the customer cinched, and that the 
rosy path of prosperity was his for good. Then the 
manufacturer began feeding part of the work to an- 
other house, and finally gave the second house so much 
that they also equipped with the special machinery. 
Then he played these two houses against each other for 
lower prices. They cut for a time, and then got to- 
gether and stiffened the rate. Thereupon Mr. Manu- 
facturer proceeds to encourage another printer to get 
in on his work, and at last accounts he had four print- 
ing plants, which he had induced to fit up with machin- 
ery adapted especially for his work, and he could give 
the lot only about 30 per cent, of their capacity. Thus 
the four are scrambling and competing for the work, 
and just managing to meet their notes, with no possi- 
bility of any of them coming out of the transaction 
with a profit, although between them they have invested 
a quarter of a million dollars for machinery for this 
one concern's work. 

This is but one of many similar instances of over- 
equipment that might be checked if there were reci- 
procity between the large printing houses, so that in- 

356 



RECIPROCITY 

stead of buying machinery for every new job, they 
looked for a competitor with idle time for some of his 
machinery. That is real reciprocity, which pays all 
parties. 

A man like the late A. W. Green, who brought some 
200 cracker bakeries into unison as the National Bis- 
cuit Company, would work wonders in the printing 
trade. Some day such a man will appear in printer- 
dom; he may even now be growing to fit the job, and 
create a practicable, legal and remunerative reciprocity 
system, good for the public as well as the printers con- 
cerned. In the meantime those who understand the 
principle of reciprocity, which is very different from 
"trustizing" or cornering a large industry, can utilize 
it within their own circle. 

Reciprocity must in all cases commence by giving. 
The man who tries to work up reciprocal trade rela- 
tions by having others give him trade on the strength 
of airy promises as to what he is going to do for them 
will gain experience but not business. The American 
trader is too much on the alert and too shrewd to be 
fooled or worked in that fashion. There must be giv- 
ing of trade before there can be any receiving worth 
mentioning. The printer who sincerely and systemati- 
cally distributes trade among a circle of specialists, 
sending linotype composition to one, presswork to an- 
other, color work and lithography to others, thus "cast- 
ing bread upon the waters," will find his own sort of 
work coming back to him after a time, as a result of the 
reciprocation of those he has favored. It is a result oi 
the Law of Compensation, which is as operative in 
business as in ethics. 

3S7 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

What a man sows that he reaps, and the fellow who 
sows trickery and plays sharp games on his competi- 
tors has to defend himself against the same kind of 
treachery; while the fellow who tries to help his fel- 
low printers gets it back in the same coin. If you want 
composition in your office, start sending presswork to 
Mr. A., who has a large pressroom and only one lino- 
type, and you will soon find him sending you orders 
for composition. By extending this practice among 
your personal friends in the trade, you open the way 
for larger reciprocation through the associations. Why 
should not every employing printers' association be a 
clearing house for work in its community? Nothing 
but the lack of reciprocity prevents it today. It will 
come, and awaits only increased faith and sincerity be- 
tween the houses in the trade. They must learn to have 
confidence in each other, just as the banks have con- 
fidence in those to whom they make loans. 

During recent hard times it was stated that fifty 
per cent, of the printing machinery in the large cities 
was idle ; yet the purchase of printing machinery went 
on at perhaps sixty per cent, of the normal rate. With 
proper reciprocity this would have been impossible. 
The few concerns with surplus work would have farmed 
out their orders to the concerns where machinery was 
standing idle, and the press-building and typesetting 
machinery companies would have had to stand idle un- 
til machines wore out or production caught up. This 
may not sound very cheerful to the machinery people, 
who have done so much to advance the art of printing, 
but it would have been sound sense for the printers, 
whose business it is to look after their own trade first, 

358 



RECIPROCITY 

and not after the printing machinery trade, which is 
sure to prosper anyway as printing prospers, and which 
ultimately must receive its share of any printing pros- 
perity. While such a policy would invite a slack period 
for the machinery manufacturers, yet when the trade 
did come, it would be much more desirable, and able to 
pay cash for its wants. 

Has it been made clear that systematic voluntary 
distribution of printing where it can best be handled 
is the fundamental idea back of reciprocity, on which it 
rests for its success? Any policy that makes for the 
good of all concerned must come in time, though it may 
be retarded by individual selfishness. 

The thing that most delays reciprocity between em- 
ploying printers is that so many still regard other 
men in the business as "competitors," and hence natur- 
al enemies. So many promptly knife competitors be- 
cause they believe the others would knife them if they 
had the chance. This attitude partakes of business 
barbarism. It must sooner or later yield to the saner 
notion that people in the same business have a part- 
nership relation, which can be worked out advantage- 
ously for all, through principles of reciprocity. It pays 
quite as much to be fair, and frank and friendly with 
competitors, as it does with customers. We all need 
the friendship of others and especially the printers in 
our localities, and the only way to get it is to give our 
best to them. 

To assist reciprocity it is advisable to speak well of 
your fellow printers to your customers and to the trade. 
The harsh word is all too easily carried back to the 
other printer, hurting the utterer more than any one 

359 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

else. Thus ill feeling is engendered, defeating oppor- 
tunities for reciprocal trade. 

If you want a good workman employed by a competi- 
tor, when such a man applies to you for a place, it is 
better to call your competitor on the phone, and say, 
"Your man Jones has applied to me for a job as make- 
up. I need him, and would be glad to hire him, but I 
don't want to cripple you. Can you spare him ?" 

Consideration like this will bring your competitor 
into a frame of mind to want to help you, and to re- 
frain from injuring you. Such incidents make for 
real friendly reciprocity. 

There is just as much need for reciprocity between 
employers and employees as between competitors. We 
have a foretaste of what such reciprocity means in the 
workings of the Printers' League. There must be ad- 
vance in such reciprocal feeling as one develops the 
idea that the workmen are partners in the business. 
It is unquestionably true that they are, and that they 
are entitled to a fair share of results. They should not 
go after their share with a club; they should not be 
squeezed so that they desire to go into clubbing tactics. 

We must recognize that America is a country of in- 
telligent industry, that the workingmen make business 
quite as much as the employers, that they know their 
rights and are organized with a view to getting them. 
They have shown a spirit of fair play, and should be 
met in the spirit of reciprocity. The time has come 
when large printing houses — like other factories — 
should share the profits with the wage-earners, by some 
reasonable system of giving back surpluses. Henry 
Ford, of course, furnishes the finest example of the re- 

360 



RECIPROCITY 

suits of such a policy. By such a course every man be- 
comes interested to make more for the concern, and 
profits are easily double what they would be without 
some understanding that the men are to be directly 
recognized when the year's balance is found favorable. 

The above is neither a sermon nor a pipe-dream, but 
a plain common-sense statement of the future trend of 
the printing business in America under an enlightened 
policy of reciprocity with all. In my own way I have 
tried to retain the good will of all my employees, and to 
make them friends and partners ; and in a similar spirit 
have worked in the employers' associations for concilia- 
tion, harmony and reciprocity. I never knowingly in- 
jured a competitor. If any feels that he has been hurt, 
let him come to me and state his case, and if he can 
show me error against him he will receive apology and 
reparation. If I have sometimes expressed myself 
forcibly in association gatherings it has not been with 
intent to browbeat or batter down opposition, but sim- 
ply because of an earnest conviction that some good 
end demanded plain speech. 

We all want the friendship of every competitor, and 
every employee, and every customer ; being human, we 
at times probably offend some, but I take this oppor- 
tunity of expressing my strong desire to carry out the 
principles of friendly reciprocity with all, and my will- 
ingness to let the other fellow have half the say in all 
matters demanding consultation. 



361 



Ethical Problems of the Printer 

A LL men recognize that good ethics, good man- 
Am ners and a kindly thoughtfulness for others are 
A. ^essential if home life is to be harmonious and 
satisfactory, but many there are who fail to practice 
in business the ethics they uphold in the home and in 
social life. 

Bad ethics are as certain to create dislike, confusion 
and disaster in business relations as anywhere else. 
No one can afford to lower his standard of right or 
wrong just because it is a matter of trade. The busi- 
ness that lasts must be based on honor. Mistakes there 
will be, for all of us are human, but when the customer 
begins to feel that he is used unfairly he is as good as 
lost. 

There are many customers of this day who think it 
a part of their program to scold the printer at regular 
intervals, who never have a good word for him, or who, 
if they are pleased with any work are careful not to 
let any one else know that they could say a good word 
for the printer. Again there are customers who fully 
appreciate the efforts that the man of types puts forth 
in their behalf, and the best of these are the periodical 
makers who bring in their advertisements several days 
after the schedule laid out, and who must publish on 
the schedule date. Many of these could be quoted show- 
ing that they realize the printer is just as anxious as 
the publisher to get all the money possible into the pub- 
lication, as it has its retroactive effect whenever the pub- 
lisher fails to obtain the money he can in his journal. 

362 



ETHICAL PROBLEMS OF THE PRINTER 

This brings to mind our great boast of "independ- 
ence" in this country and yet how very dependent we 
are, one on the other, all through life and even after, 
until we are laid comfortably away for good. A story 
of an independent man comes to mind, the one and 
only man who really is independent, being placed on a 
desert island without clothes or food, and even he has 
to depend upon the soil, the water and the animals to 
maintain life. So we are dependent upon our custom- 
ers, and also upon our employees, and upon our supply 
and paper men for a combination to bring food for our 
families, and our customers are again dependent upon 
the consumer of their product, upon the advertiser and 
the subscriber, the purchaser of the wares offered for 
sale through the various mediums, whether they be cir- 
culars, letters, publications or other means of reaching 
those to whom they wish to sell. 

In order that the best of harmony may prevail be- 
tween all parties, and especially the consumer of our 
products, the printer must be very careful to follow out 
instructions given as to time and quality, to please the 
customer's customer, for that is where the publisher 
gets the "wherewith" to relieve our necessities. 

Our lack of uniformity in prices for printing is one of 
the fatal errors of our business, and is just as fatal to 
our customer as to ourselves. If Tom Jones can get 
his journal published for $1,000 an issue and his co- 
temporary has to pay $1,500 for the same service, the 
cotemporary cannot make the same amount of profit 
unless he charges 50 per cent, more for his advertising 
and subscriptions, and Tom Jones may wake up some 
fine morning and find that instead of his journal ap- 

363 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

pearing as it has done for many years promptly, the 
sheriff has visited the cheap print shop, and Tom Jones' 
publication is "tied up" good and hard. 

Now, we have laws in restraint of trade which may 
be good sometimes, but how often the law seems to 
react upon itself and send many foolish competitors to 
the wall ! 

We also have Cost Congresses filled with enthusiasm 
from all parts of the country, and the delegate returns 
home with the determination to raise his prices, which 
have been altogether too low, as shown by the Cost Con- 
gress, but the first time he comes before one of his cus- 
tomers and begins to talk the matter over, and tries 
to convince him that he has been losing money for a 
long time on his work, the customer tells him con- 
fidentially that one of his confreres down the street 
has offered to do the work for 15 per cent, less than 
he is now paying for it ! And the Cost Congress fades 
into oblivion, and the printer crawls into his shell, glad 
to know that the work was not taken away for his 
imprudence in asking for a fair price. 

The reputation of a printer in promising delivery of 
work has so depreciated in the scale that he is proverbi- 
ally known as a "liar," but the customer, when he gives 
the printer some "inside information" in regard to 
what the competitor will do his work for, is noted for 
his "veracity." There may possibly be a little devia- 
tion, by accident of course, in the specifications, but his 
veracity cannot be questioned. 

There is one thing that appears to me as being very 
pertinent to the ethics of the printer and his customer, 
and which constitutes a reason why the printer should 

364 



ETHICAL PROBLEMS OF THE PRINTER 

have a greater ratio of profit than in any other busi- 
ness, and it is this : If a customer orders printing and 
for any reason refuses to either receive or pay for it, 
it is a total loss to the printer, more so than in any 
other business. If it were a loaf of bread, a house, a 
suit of clothes, a boat, or any other merchandise, it 
could be sold for some reasonable price, but the printer's 
product is worth next to nothing and the loss is com- 
plete. Another reason is that the liability to error is 
greater than in any other line of business. 

These are good reasons for a greater margin of profit 
than in any other business in order to offset these 
risks, but what are the facts? 

In actual every-day practice, the printer is obliged, 
by the lack of cooperation, truthfulness, fair dealing, 
and combination with his fellows, to scratch along with 
a very meagre profit, and is always making an effort 
to fill up his plant and keep his machinery going, be- 
cause it is expensive if idle, and is always living in fear 
of the other fellow — and the results are easy to see. 
The frequent change in establishments of executives 
and proprietors, and the many that go under the ham- 
mer or pay no dividend whatever tell the story of 
profits that never materialized. 

Where lies the secret of success? One word prop- 
erly applied would change the whole situation, and that 
word is "confidence," and then cooperation. The divi- 
sion of the employers' associations of the country, and 
their unusually short life, shows the lack of confidence 
and cooperation with one another. Further elucida- 
tion of the idea of cooperation will be found in the 
chapter entitled "Reciprocity." 

365 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

Where lies the secret of success with our employees ? 
Confidence in the fact that without cooperation, one 
with the other, we employers would deal to them the 
disastrous consequences we have brought on ourselves 
by this lack of confidence and cooperation. 

The remedy lies in a combination of all forces for 
mutual advancement. In order to make it possible for 
prices to have some stability and basis it is necessary 
to begin cooperation with our employees, and our mate- 
rial and paper men, and then with our customers, for 
it stands to reason that if the customer knew he had 
to pay a definite price for his printing, as he does for 
his bread and clothes, he would pay it, and would be 
able to make his charges accordingly. 

Under existing conditions the customer is too often 
burdened by having to pay for the expense of main- 
taining a large force of salesmen for the printing office, 
and a successful salesman is a high-priced luxury, and 
this non-producer eats up the profits if there are any 
in the business. 

Owing to the conditions set forth, the work of obtain- 
ing a clientele is beset by many difficulties, and every 
printer has to work out his own salvation. The Charles 
Francis Press has adopted the plan of making satisfied 
customers, and in this we have the cooperation of our 
employees, for they understand that their personal 
welfare is at stake whenever a customer is not given 
just what he wants and when he wants it. We avoid 
padding bills for profit, and do our best to prevent the 
wasting of the customer's investment. 

By the adoption of these means we have many cus- 
tomers who have involuntarily become solicitors for the 

366 



ETHICAL PROBLEMS OF THE PRINTER 

house, and the non-producing salesman has been re- 
duced to a minimum. The duties of the salesmen we 
have are largely to see that the interest of the customer 
in our institution does not wane, and that some little 
matter is not allowed to rankle in his breast until it 
becomes a mountain. We make it a rule to treat the 
employees of our customers with courtesy and respect, 
according to them — as representatives of the customer 
— the same treatment as if he personally were present. 

Our employees are proverbial for doing everything 
in their power to make and keep a satisfied customer, 
and without their cooperation our efforts would be 
vain. I wish we could say the same of our fellow- 
employers — in some instances we can even to a great 
extent, but the lack of cooperation with fellow-em- 
ployers is disastrous in its effects. 

It must be admitted that the great majority of em- 
ployers are too narrow; they sit in their offices and 
groan under their burdens and complain of the injustice 
of human nature, and think their competitors are hide- 
ous and frightful specters, when if they would step out 
and join hands for the betterment of the business, by 
confidence and cooperation, their minds would be broad- 
ened and their businesses strengthened by cooperation 
with all parties with whom they have business dealings. 

Printers' cost congresses are all right and printers' 
boards of trade are all right, and printers' consulta- 
tions and cooperation with their employees and others 
for mutual benefit are all right, but we must have "con- 
fidence" in one another, and so conduct our business, 
both toward our customer and competitor, that both 
will have "confidence" in us. 

367 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

"Confidence" must begin at home and be of our own 
making, by our own application of the principles of fair 
dealing always and with all people. "Confidence" in 
one another earned by fair dealing, is the solution of all 
questions of ethics between the printer and his cus- 
tomer. 

Misrepresentation is a boomerang. The printer who 
deceives his customers has only himself to blame when 
they desert him. We all know printers, capable of good 
work and possessed of many excellent qualities, who 
seem unable to understand that nothing is gained when 
they secure a job by misrepresentation. Take the all- 
too-common practice of underestimating on a job and 
then overcharging on extras and corrections to get 
back the fair cost and a profit. There are many who 
defend this method as being forced on them by the 
customers who are hammering them for prices at cost 
and below cost, and who declare this the only way to 
get even with them. Such printers usually consider 
it quite honest, because they say they give value for 
what they produce. 

This may be true, but it does not excuse the mis- 
representation, which involves evils apparent on an- 
alysis. In the first place the practice of cutting the 
estimate price is not fair to the printer himself nor to 
his competitors. It misleads the public as to the costs 
of printing, and makes many customers unwilling to 
pay a fair price, because they are led to believe costs are 
much less than they really are. Next, the practice 
tends to create actual dishonesty, for one lie always 
begets another. In making up the difference on extras, 
false or extravagant charges have to be put on the 

368 



ETHICAL PROBLEMS OF THE PRINTER 

books, leading the employees to set down the proprietor 
as tricky or as a rogue, and educating and training 
them to improper methods, which they are likely to use 
later to his disadvantage. 

One deception in the first instance, regarded as 
harmless, brings on another, until the practice becomes 
surrounded with lies and subterfuge, and everybody 
in the office learns that it is the custom to double up the 
time in charging extras to customers. False entries 
and forged time-slips are apt to follow in this chain of 
error. Such an employer would never dare prosecute 
his bookkeeper if he caught him stealing; and thus the 
whole shop is demoralized and placed on a corrupt 
basis. 

Another bad result of this dishonest practice is that 
the printer who follows it soon finds his shop filled with 
cheap work, and discovers also that he is in continual 
dispute with his customers over minor items. 

How much happier is the condition of the printer 
who makes an honest price at the start, leaving a suf- 
ficient margin of profit to give a good service with 
good printing! He gets the cream of the custom, the 
people who have learned that it pays to buy the best, 
and thus receive the best product. And he keeps 
friends with his customers, while everybody is satisfied. 

Other sorts of misrepresentation are apt to result in 
similar difficulties. A story comes to mind of a printer 
who made a monthly magazine, and collected every 
month for the making of electrotypes of the pages. On 
the second month the customer was informed that a 
day could be saved on that occasion by omitting the 
electrotyping, and verbal permission was secured to 

369 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

print from the linotype slugs and type forms for that 
issue. The printer continued to omit making the plates, 
though collecting for them in every monthly bill. 

At the end of a year's contract, the magazine was 
taken away, and the customer called for his electro- 
plates. He got them for one issue only, and was told 
that the others were omitted by verbal arrangement. 
When he demanded back the cost of unmade electros, 
he was told that the cost was offset by the wear and tear 
on the type used to print from. As the forms were 
mostly linotype slugs, this wear probably was less than 
a tenth the cost of the missing electros. Result : One 
lawsuit which the printer won on a technicality after 
spending in legal fees all he had skinned the customer 
out of in electrotype charges. 

Why some printers think that it pays to keep on doing 
such things,, and destroying their reputations, is beyond 
me to understand. Human nature is weak, and tempta- 
tions are many, and unfortunately customers play so 
many tricks on printers that many come to think it all 
a game in which the cleverest trickster wins out. A 
sample of the way some customers do is found in the 
method of a former well-known department store. 
They sent out memoranda for estimates of all their 
printing, always inviting figures from ten printers. 
If one printer was considerably below the others, he 
got the job. If the ten figures were fairly uniform, 
the request for estimate was sent to ten others, in the 
hope of catching some fellow who would make an error, 
and figure below cost. Thus for several years they 
secured nearly all their printing at less than actual cost. 
It* is not important to analyze the processes by which 

370 



ETHICAL PROBLEMS OF THE PRINTER 

such methods disintegrated the department store, but 
it is sufficient to remark that in time the place was 
closed up. 

A business involving so much detail as printing also 
presents unusual opportunities for playing tricks on 
customers, on competitors, and between employers and 
employees. Tricks are essentially deceitful, and lower 
the standard of morality of the house that permits 
them. There is but one right way to do business — to 
keep back nothing from the other fellow that he is pay- 
ing for and has a right to know. We so easily recognize 
trickiness and shiftiness in others, and so commonly 
see through their shams and hypocrisies, that it becomes 
a matter of real wonder why men of even moderate pre- 
tensions to brains and good management should con- 
tinue year after year to play the same old tricks on the 
people they buy from and sell to. 

Without stopping to comment on the error and wrong 
of all dealings that are not straightforward — for this 
is not a book on morals — is it not surprising that plain 
common-sense does not force the average man to be 
thoroughly honest and aboveboard in all his transac- 
tions ? 

Every man feels insulted if called a liar, yet it does 
seem as if fully half of the business people we meet 
cannot be trusted to tell the whole truth about their 
goods, or to avoid the small tricks peculiar to their 
trade. I recollect a printers' discussion as to time 
charges, in which the majority of those present ad- 
mitted that they habitually estimated part of the time 
that went on their bills, certainly a dangerous practice ; 
and in which one man said frankly that his hour prices 

371 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

varied according to the demands of the customers — 
if they insisted on getting corrections, etc., at 60 cents 
an hour, he billed them that way. "But," he added with 
a smile, "I see to it that I lose nothing on corrections." 
This was generally regarded as a good joke. 

It is the slipping into these questionable practices 
that weakens consciences until downright robbery is 
condoned. So the only straight path is to be strictly 
ethical, and not allow oneself to be deluded into doing 
anything that will not bear the light of publicity. 

We have all heard people say that one has to do this 
and that in our trade ; that there is no choice. It is the 
old story of putting the good side of the melon out and 
keeping the bad side out of sight. One sale is made 
and two sales lost. To all those who struggle with 
ethical problems in their business, and seek light on 
better methods, I recommend a study of the principles 
of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World. 
Here is an entire profession prospering on honor as it 
never prospered on duplicity. 

There simply is no business in which it pays to do 
unethical things. 



372 



Customs of the Trade 

THERE are three kinds of law to be considered in 
trade dealings : the law of the state or nation, 
trade custom, and the unwritten law of human 
fairness and good will. The latter is often the more 
important. The good will and friendship of customers 
is the best asset a printer can have. There have grown 
up with the printing industry in America certain cus- 
toms which have become recognized laws in the trade. 
While these are not matters of statutory or legislative 
enactment, they are often legally binding, because in 
civil suits it is customary for courts to enquire what is 
the custom of the trade, and when this is established, 
action in accord therewith is apt to be supported by 
judge or jury. 

Some of these customs are so old, or so generally 
established in other lines of trade, as not to require any 
discussion here. For instance, no one will now dispute 
that a customer for printing should furnish his own 
copy in writing, and that it should be legible, and that 
if his copy is "blind" or illiterate the printer is not 
responsible except to reproduce it to the best of his 
ability. 

But there are numerous customs, not so well known 
or established, which it seems well to emphasize here. 
In the matter of orders, written instructions should be 
asked for, and if the customer does not provide them, 
an acceptance blank should be used, as indicated in the 
chapter " Taking Orders and Holding Customers." 
(See p. 186.) Verbal orders and instructions by tele- 

373 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

phone make for uncertainty, and are dangerous to the 
interests of both parties, unless supported by written 
statement, which can be accomplished through such a 
blank. The object sought is not a basis by which to win 
a suit, but a means of preventing misunderstandings, 
loss and disagreement. 

A customer canceling an order that has been entered 
is liable for all expense and trouble incurred to that 
time. The printer has a right — nay, it is his duty to 
himself — to figure in both direct and indirect expenses 
such a customer has made, for he is releasing him from 
a contract for his convenience and to the printer's 
detriment. Many printers in figuring such expense 
forget their overhead costs. The time of their office 
force is quite as definite a cost as composing room time 
or paper ordered. One of the most common expenses 
of a canceled contract is the placing of an order for 
paper with a mill. Rarely can the printer stop the 
mill without expense. If the paper has not come in it 
may be possible to get the mill or some jobber to hold 
it, and take it off your hands at a discount. But so 
many thousand sheets of paper, bought for a special 
purpose, are never worth as much for some other pur- 
pose. Only those who have handled this sort of thing 
realize how much time and trouble and loss is usually 
involved. 

The care of customers' property entails many points 
regarding which differences may arise. It should always 
be understood that the printer does not insure any 
paper, electros, engravings, manuscripts, drawings, etc., 
which the customer places in his custody, and that he is 
not liable for fire or water damage, nor for loss by 

374 



CUSTOMS OF THE TRADE 

burglary. He agrees only to give such property reason- 
able care for a brief time. He does not maintain a 
storage warehouse, either gratis or for pay. The laws 
regarding storage warehouses in New York, and pre- 
sumably most other large cities, make it impracticable 
for the printer to contract to store or take pay for 
storage of customer's property. If he does, he is likely 
to find that he is running a storage warehouse contrary 
to law, and therefore liable to local fines, and perhaps 
in case of fire liable for the destruction of his cus- 
tomer's goods. Not being paid for such risks, and not 
having the fireproof compartments of a storage ware- 
house, the printer cannot afford to take such chances. 

Since the printer is virtually obliged to handle cus- 
tomer's property to a greater or less extent, without 
specific charge for storage or handling, it seems best 
to estimate such as a part of general expense, in making 
prices for work, so that the overhead expense involved 
may not be lost. 

In making contracts for large work, where the cus- 
tomer supplies his own paper or other property, it 
should be made very clear that he is to supply his own 
fire insurance, and that the printer is only responsible 
to the extent of reasonable care against waste and 
spoilage. In the matter of handling customers' paper, 
various publications and associations in the trade have 
at times argued and specified that ten per cent, should 
be added to the cost of paper for handling, but. this is 
a custom frequently "honored in the breach," because 
the publisher or other customer objects to a specific 
charge, which he is not in the habit of seeing on his 
bills. 

375 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

It is also apparent that in many instances ten per 
cent, is far too high a charge, and sometimes it is too 
little. If the printer has to send a young man down 
to a paper jobber's to buy a dollar's worth of paper for 
a special small job, it may well cost him half a dollar, 
or 50 per cent. ; but in the case of a weekly publication 
involving running $1,000 worth of paper through the 
presses, it certainly is not worth $100 to handle this 
paper, which perhaps does not lie in the place more than 
a few days. 

Ten per cent, is probably a fair average price for 
handling paper in a small or general job office, but 
when it comes to long runs of large work the paper is 
often — nay, usually — worth as much or more than the 
printing charge, and to claim ten per cent, for handling, 
would be to make 20 per cent, out of such printing 
instead of 10 per cent., the figure commonly aimed at, 
but not always attained. 

The labor cost of handling paper in the Charles 
Francis Press, where the runs are mostly long, is four 
and 13/100ths cents per 100 lbs. This cost has no rela- 
tion to the value of the paper. It costs not a cent more 
to handle a hundred pounds of 15-cent paper than 4- 
cent paper, there being no insurance. Under such con- 
ditions a fair charge for handling is about l/10th of a 
cent a pound, and is best taken care of in the price fixed 
for presswork. 

In the case of used electros and cuts, left with the 
printer without specific instructions, the custom is that 
after a reasonable time the printer is justified in junk- 
ing them, and accepting the junk-man's payment to 
cover his own cost in holding and handling them. What 

376 



CUSTOMS OF THE TRADE 

a "reasonable time" is may vary with circumstances. 
We often destroy electros of monthly publications with- 
in 90 days, being certain there will be no reprinting 
after that length of time ; but in miscellaneous work we 
hold electros six or eight months, and often a year or 
more. It depends on the nature of the work. In the 
absence of any specific agreement no printer ought to 
be held to produce an electro or engraving more than 
one year. The same applies in a greater degree to 
original copy for jobs of printing. These are rarely 
called for at all, and as their accumulation increases 
fire risk, they are seldom held longer than six months. 
There is no need of holding weekly publication copy 
more than a month, or monthly publication copy over 60 
days. 

However, for his own protection, the printer should 
hold copy and proofs until all the bills connected with a 
job have been paid or canceled. 

It has long been customary for printers to place on 
their letter-heads, contracts, and other appropriate 
printings, these words : "All agreements are made and 
all orders accepted contingent upon strikes, fires, acci- 
dents, unusual market conditions or causes beyond 
printer's control." This has been found useful in case 
of disputed responsibility for loss. It might be well to 
include in the above clause the phrase "contingent on 
general customs of the trade." 

Some printers and binders have gone so far as to 
print a long list of customs and rules on the back of 
their letter-heads, and to include in these various stipu- 
lations which if carried out would make settlements 
wholly in the favor of the firm using same. A very little 

377 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

knowledge of law should satisfy any one that this is 
neither good law, good sense nor common fairness. No 
customer should be held for what is not commonly ac- 
cepted trade custom, except by specific agreement, and 
he cannot be held for small print on the back of corres- 
pondence which he has not assented to nor signed, and 
probably never read. 

A binder has been known to bind up thousands of 
book sheets belonging to the customer of a customer- 
publisher, in excess of the written binding order, and 
then to threaten the publisher with suit for such non- 
ordered binding because six months before they had 
written the publisher a letter on the back of which was 
a printed clause specifying that they reserved the right 
to bind up all sheets coming into their place at their 
convenience regardless of the order. They did not col- 
lect the bill, though they did receive an amount suffi- 
cient to cover the handling and storage of the sheets the 
binding of which was not ordered nor desired. 

The proper place for all such stipulations that are to 
be a part of contracts is in the contracts themselves, 
above the signatures of the parties; then it is under- 
stood and binding on both parties. The small-type-on- 
the-back method of foisting restricting clauses into 
contracts has been thoroughly tried out by insurance 
companies and generally squelched by the courts. It is 
essentially dishonest, and does not pay. 

Since the printer's truckmen, stockmen and others 
in his employ are frequently called upon to receipt for 
goods which they cannot count or accurately determine, 
the printer is responsible only for the incoming number 
of bundles, packages, etc., signed for, unless there is 

378 



CUSTOMS OF THE TRADE 

special agreement with the customer providing for a 
full count or weighing and examining at his expense. 

It is regrettable to feel obliged to say that it is a cus- 
tom with some printers to give short count, and to hide 
it by delivering first bundles of full count, and later 
bundles of short count. The customer may count the 
first package, and measure or weigh one or two more, 
and thereafter is apt to receipt for the bundles without 
close examination, hence he does not discover the short- 
age until a considerable time afterward, or perhaps not 
at all. If he becomes convinced of it, and resists paying 
a part of the bill, he makes a poor showing in defense of 
a suit, because he has given receipts, and the goods have 
been handled by various of his employees, and he has to 
admit that he accepted the goods and used them. The 
only defense of a customer against such is to count all 
the work as it comes in, and ever thereafter steer clear 
of printers of tricky reputations. 

In using customer's paper there is often a difference 
as to waste involved. There can be no hard and fixed 
rule for a percentage of waste that is permissible, be- 
cause it is always a varying quantity. The customer 
who purchases 103,000 sheets for a run of 100,000 
thinks he has furnished plenty, and at times we put 
through such runs with as little as two per cent, waste. 
But the waste simply will run higher at times, because 
so many uncertainties enter into the problem. The 
paper may be flaky and hard to handle, or there may be 
undiscovered short count in it; there may be difficulty 
with the ink ; a little sharp sand may get on a fine cut, 
and spoil several hundred sheets before the damage is 
discovered and the press stopped to replace the cut; 

379 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

and there are a score of similar things in the nature of 
accidents that make for waste. So the risk of large 
waste is always with the customer who furnishes his 
own paper; it adheres to the job, and should be paid by 
him, except in cases of gross carelessness in the print- 
ery, when the printer should lose it. 

When it comes to color runs, say of four impressions, 
the waste normally runs up to 12y 2 per cent., though 
very few customers seem to be able to understand why 
they should pay for such excess of paper. It is well to 
have records of spoilage to show customers how other 
work runs, and thus educate them to accepting unavoid- 
able conditions. The situation would be helped if the 
paper maker would only supply 510 or 520 sheets to 
the ream instead of the unreasonable old custom of 
480 to the ream, which is a long-perpetuated nuisance. 
This is now very generally 500 sheets to the ream, 
except in some grades of high class writing papers. 

There have long been rules as to charges for standing 
type matter. This was more important in the days 
when type cost 60 and 70 cents a pound. Primarily 
the rules were made for cases where a customer would 
order the type kept standing for his own convenience, 
to enable him to make changes later, or for a possible 
new edition. While the rules call for a charge for mat- 
ter kept over 30 days, it has not been customary to 
enforce such rules in the case of jobs that lag in their 
progress through the printery, and perhaps are not 
printed until 90 days after the type is set. This is at 
times a hardship for the printer, and often he requires 
to be more strict. Take a linotype plant that puts all 
its spare metal into one job, and then because the cus- 

380 



CUSTOMS OF THE TRADE 

tomer holds up the proofs has to go out and buy up a 
ton or two at war prices. The metal cannot be billed if 
it is still with the linotyper, but the cost must be met in 
some way, and should be covered by a standing- matter 
charge. 

Where the customer does not make a typographical 
style for a job the printer is justified in making a style 
for him, and charging as corrections all variations from 
that style. It is the part of wisdom not to be too strict 
as to style, especially when the customer does not care 
for it; and it is necessary to avoid making useless 
charges against him for time work done to preserve a 
style. A case in point occurred in my Western experi- 
ence. We printed a weekly paper for a customer, and a 
contributor to that paper was given a proof of his ar- 
ticle. He marked in some hundred or two commas, 
having a strenuous love for close punctuation. I in- 
structed the printer to disregard the marks, as con- 
trary to the style of the paper, and it went to press 
without his commas. He raved, and came around to 
kick, and the editor pushed him off on me. I frankly 
told him that every paper had to have a style, and that 
he did not and could not set the style for that paper. 
Though I tried to smooth it over, he went away sore. 
The following year this man was attorney general of 
the State and I was handling the contract for State 
printing. When he brought in his first job, he looked 
at me woefully, remarking, "I have got to bring this 
here, but I suppose I can't get you to print this as I 
want it, for you object to putting in the proper com- 
mas." I laughed, and told him that in this case he was 
the customer and could set the style, and could have a 

381 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

dozen commas in every line if he wanted them. Soon 
we came to an understanding, and all ran smoothly. 

All alterations from copy are a proper subject of time 
charge, but it is not fair for the printer to charge into 
his time the corrections of errors made by his own 
force. Where more than two proofs are called for, and 
where press proofs are demanded, the customer should 
pay time charges covering the full cost, including time 
both of men and of machines. 

When linotype composition is sold, it is customary to 
bill the metal at a price several cents a pound above the 
market value, and if the metal is not returned in thirty 
days, or by the time agreed, to regard it as a sale and 
collect pay (or try to collect pay) for the metal. This 
is fair, provided the difference between the market 
price and billing price be not too great. The endeavor 
to collect a difference of 30 or 40 per cent, is invariably 
and rightly resisted. Perhaps an advance rate of 20 
per cent, for small lots of metal and 10 per cent, for 
lots worth $100 or more is fair. 

There are familiar established usages in the measur- 
ing of composition, that are too familiar to be cited 
here; some less familiar require consideration. Very 
lean type commands an increased price per 1,000 ems. 
Narrow measures involve extra cost, and when less 
than 10 ems pica is measurable as if it actually were 10 
ems pica wide. This rule was first adopted by the ma- 
chine composition houses in the New York Master 
Printers' Association, about 1904, and is eminently fair. 

Many printers measure linotype matter with a type- 
founders' rule. This may or may not give a correct 
measure; frequently it overmeasures the matter be- 

382 



CUSTOMS OF THE TRADE 

cause the slugs are either trimmed "fat," or have a 
slight burr, or are not locked up tightly from the foot 
when proving, or because the paper has dried and ex- 
panded since proving. I have seen such measurement 
by foundry rule that differed three lines per galley from 
the actual count by lines, making a difference of 600 
lines or 18,000 ems on a 200-galley job. Certainly the 
body of the slug is the correct basis for measurement, 
and ten pica lines should only measure ten lines, 
regardless of any "stretch" from such causes as indi- 
cated above. 

It is a much discussed question whether printers 
should charge for estimates. Nearly all agree that they 
ought to be permitted to charge at times, but in prac- 
tice they never do. The misuse of estimates is really a 
serious evil in the trade, and should be combatted. It 
involves much more than the loss of the time of high- 
priced men in making the figures; the system invites 
the public to work one printer against another, and to 
use quotations from one to reduce the prices of another, 
when the one estimating never was intended to have a 
chance at the work. 

Where one printer farms out work to another he is 
entitled to a trade price or differential, to enable him 
to make a profit. What this differential should be is 
not definitely fixed, though ten per cent, is probably a 
common figure, based on the idea that the man who 
handles the order is entitled to make ten per cent. A 
high-priced printer, farming out work to a rush shop, 
may secure 20 to 40 per cent, differential, and this may 
not be unfair considering that the high-priced printer 
has supplied perhaps unusual taste in design, has to 

383 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

meet a heavy overhead office expense, and becomes re- 
sponsible for a fine job, reading the proof and following 
it up at some cost. 

If the work so farmed out is taken originally at a 
close price, it may be difficult for the printer who sub- 
contracts to do it for ten per cent. less. He is of course 
not going to do it below cost if he knows it. But a 
printer with an idle press is justified in making a trade 
price to another printer, provided this is done in a way 
not to depreciate prices to the public. The argument 
against "fillers" does not apply if the price to the pub- 
lic is not cut. It appears, however, that there can be 
no fixed rules as to trade prices while prices to the pub- 
lic are so elastic. If the charges for printing ever be- 
come scheduled like railway fares, and thus more or 
less permanent, a fair uniform discount as a trade price 
may be possible. 

Since it is manifestly impossible for the printer to 
make the exact number of copies of a large job, of 
which the individual copies may be worth several cents 
each, or as in the case of books and catalogues some- 
times 25 cents to a dollar each, he is justified in de- 
livering a total varying not over five per cent, from the 
order, and in deducting or adding a pro rata charge 
for the underrun or overrun. Otherwise his only safe 
course is to provide surplus material of all sorts to an 
excess of about five per cent, to cover whatever hap- 
pens to run shortest, and thus be sure of making enough 
copies to fill his contract. In all large jobs it is best to 
have an understanding with customers as to this trade 
custom to avoid dispute. The customer rarely objects 
to the point in advance, but he often seriously objects 

384 



CUSTOMS OF THE TRADE 

at the end of a job, as he may find that an overrun or 
underrun is to his advantage or disadvantage. 

It is a custom of long standing in the printing trade 
to pay employees weekly in cash, and in a majority of 
offices no receipt is taken from the men; they simply 
get their cash in envelopes made up by the bookkeeper, 
and if there is an error it must be rectified by the em- 
ployee going at once to the bookkeeper or cashier, else 
it passes beyond any one's knowledge. The courts have 
recognized this condition as reasonable, and where such 
regular payrolls exist, are loath to accept the word of a 
worker that he was not paid or not fully paid at the 
time of a regular payroll distribution. But when the 
employer systematically holds back a part of the wages, 
or enters into complicated arrangements of part wages 
and part commissions to his helpers, he opens the way 
to misunderstandings and trickery, as well as false 
claims. A jury is much inclined to give an employee 
any wages or commission he sues for, on the ground 
that he would not be likely to sue unless his cause was 
just, and that it is a hardship to sue for his money, 
and therefore they should be liberal with him. 

For these reasons it is erroneous practice to advance 
small sums to employees to carry them along, or to do 
anything that complicates the regular and simple meth- 
od of payments. If you want to help an employee who 
is in a hole, go down in your personal pocket and make 
him a loan rather than advance him any wages from 
the company's treasury. 



385 



Leakages, Pitfalls and Mistakes 

THE income tax of most captains of industry 
would figure up very profitably for the tax-gath- 
erer were it not for the provisions for reductions 
on account of debts, losses, depreciation, etc. So the 
average printing plant might show a fine margin of 
profit, but for the long list of leakages, the blunders and 
mistakes, and the accidental or incidental losses that 
adhere more or less to all trading. 

A wholesale dealer in flour or the like, buying in car- 
load lots of the mills, so that he merely purchases and 
sells the receipts for flour that he never sees, on a mar- 
gin of perhaps ten or fifteen cents a barrel, has to keep 
track of little else than the reliability of the concerns 
with whom he trades and the ruling prices in the mar- 
ket. His watchful care has to cover but a few things. 
The barber has only to give an easy shave and a neat 
hair-cut, and be clean and polite. The maker of a pat- 
ented novelty may have a simple business, selling to a 
few concerns the same thing over and over for prompt 
cash. These lines of trade are vastly simpler than 
printing, and a man may succeed in them without hav- 
ing much capacity for detail. 

Our chosen art and occupation involves such a mul- 
tiplicity of intricate details that a little laxity in one or 
two things may readily nullify the profit on every job. 
Probably there is no other business that involves more 
liability to error and leakage than running a commer- 
cial printing plant — though I have found shipbuilding 
a close second. Take a magazine issue as a sample job 

386 



LEAKAGES, PITFALLS AND MISTAKES 

of printing. It may easily contain 250 pages, and each 
and every type on every page must be in proper posi- 
tion. Out of the million chances for error of this sort, 
if the customer finds three or four wrong, he is apt to 
characterize the entire production as a "rotten job," 
despite the fact that the editor never lived who pro- 
duced that much copy without a full hundred errors. 
The poor printer is supposed to correct these errors as 
well as his own mistakes. 

The magazine may also contain 200 pictures big and 
little, all of which must be accurate in detail and cor- 
rectly placed. Should a pressman turn around one of 
those "blind" cuts that look alike from every view- 
point, the customer will rarely accept any excuses. 
There may be 500 advertisements, which not only must 
be individually proof-perfect, but positioned and located 
according to an exact schedule. And the pages of the 
entire magazine must be printed so that they will fold 
into the proper order, back in register, and line up at 
the top when the publication is completed. Then there 
are all the chances of error in dates and captions, in 
covering, binding and mailing, while the entire job is 
seriously reduced in value if it is late in issue, and if 
the total of the order should have been misconstrued as 
either 1,000 too few or too many, it is the printer's 
loss. 

Observing the culmination of responsibilities taken 
in connection with this one magazine issue, and recol- 
lecting that large printers may issue 25 or 35 magazines 
a month, and handle several thousand smaller jobs, all 
on eight to ten per cent, margin of profit, and it is at 
once apparent that if one in a hundred of the chances 

387 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

of error are allowed to develop into publication, that the 
narrow margin of profit will be wiped out, and that the 
printer's reputation will suffer accordingly. 

The character of the men composing the working 
force of a printing factory exercises the largest measure 
of influence upon the total of leakages and errors. When 
men are intelligent and well-satisfied with their posi- 
tions, with a kindly feeling toward the house, experi- 
encing fair treatment, they are therefore anxious to 
give in return accurate and satisfactory performance. 
When there is also provided a system of checks and 
o. k.'s, to cover all possible errors, the chances of blun- 
ders going through are still further reduced. The job 
ticket, with proper bookkeeping, a system of written 
orders for everything, and an efficient proofreading de- 
partment are the things depended on by most printers 
for accuracy in their work. But on top of these, per- 
petual vigilance must be exercised, and no needless 
chances taken. 

Willingness to show the customer plenty of proofs, 
the calling him on the phone in every case of doubt and 
hasty decision, have saved many a loss in printing; 
whereas taking things for granted, and a little too much 
haste in drawing conclusions, have been the founda- 
tions for countless costly shaving of the bills when pre- 
sented for payment. The proverb "Haste makes waste" 
must have been written by the first printer. Taking 
time to consider all the essential details of a job before 
giving the order to go ahead is a practice learned in 
the School of Experience. 

The next largest cause of waste in the printing of- 
fice is no doubt the dissipation of time and effort, spent 

388 



LEAKAGES, PITFALLS AND MISTAKES 

in useless and needless performance. The badly laid- 
out printery, which causes the workmen to take daily 
twice the steps they should in the ordinary routine, 
is a ceaseless drag on the treasury. We all know print- 
eries distributed over several small floors, with poor 
light, and inconveniences at every turn, where there 
must be a continual wastage of ten to twenty per cent, 
of the time of the force. Poor systems of type dis- 
tribution and sort-picking have been condemned by 
every writer on printing since the time of Moxon, yet 
they still continue. The non-distribution system, by 
which dead jobs all go into the melting pot, has been a 
saver simply because it eliminates the greater waste 
of pottering on dead forms. 

A foreman who trots into the front office three times 
with every little order before he gets the details into 
his Head, and who then summons a compositor, and 
wastes his time also by an over-verbose description of 
what should be all covered by the job ticket, and who 
next stops to chat with one of the girls, and next fills 
his pipe and settles himself for a quiet smoke, is about 
as wasteful a thing as can be kept in a printery, even 
though otherwise competent. He not only wastes his 
own time, but sets a bad example to all others in the 
shop. 

A pressman who fiddles in making ready, and can 
only see one blemish at a time on a sheet, hence who 
never seems to get through patching a tympan, is an- 
other sort of potterer, wasting his time, his feeder's, 
and that of the press, and should be sent to an appren- 
tice school to study the value of push and hustle. And 
so on through all departments of the printing office. 

389 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

The slowpokes and the time-wasters have to be elimin- 
ated before any printery can be expected to show a 
profit. 

Lack of cooperation and understanding between the 
several departments of a printery is a never-ending 
source of misunderstanding and spoiled work. In the 
shop where the cry of the composing room is that this 
was the binder's fault, and in the bindery that the com- 
posing room has gone wrong, and in the pressroom that 
both other departments must be crazy, the obvious fault 
is lack of harmony and frequent and frank discussion 
between the several heads of departments as to the 
work in hand. Team work is as essential here as on 
the football field. The foremen and men too must all 
work together and understand what may be expected 
of the others, as well as to know each one's own respon- 
sibility. 

It is a serious leakage to have on the payroll a sales- 
man or a half-partner who does not earn his salary. It 
is unwise to hire any man in a way that prevents his 
being discharged or released on a week's notice, if un- 
profitable. There is often temptation to enter into con- 
tracts covering a period of time, which promise favor- 
ably, but which depend on the other fellow's ability to 
turn in business, and if the expected trade is not forth- 
coming, the printer-proprietor may find himself loaded 
with a salary to pay, and nothing coming in to meet it. 
If you are not experienced in this feature let it alone. 

The best way is to pay all help by the week, or to 
make a straight commission for selling. The partner- 
ship arrangements with a worker who does not invest 
in a business are very apt to work out unsatisfactorily. 

390 



LEAKAGES, PITFALLS AND MISTAKES 

All partnerships are dangerous, but especially so with 
the man who is financially irresponsible. If money is 
made you divide with such; but if money is lost you 
lose it all. Many beginners in business are unaware 
that certain commission deals make a man a real part- 
ner and not an employee, and that his services cannot 
be dispensed with when unprofitable, and that if things 
are unsatisfactory to him he can demand and secure an 
accounting at law, and perhaps enjoin the real pro- 
prietor from going on with his business until a settle- 
ment is made, no matter how unreasonable and unfair 
are the demands. It is of importance for every proprie- 
tor of a business to avoid commission deals with sales- 
men or others that may be construed into a partner- 
ship. The costs of partnership suits are levied on the 
business, and so all come out of the responsible part- 
ner. The condition is one that enables the irresponsible 
man without money, who has got one end of a partner- 
ship contract with a printer who has money or a plant, 
to make himself a nuisance, and blackmail the printer 
in order to be rid of him: 

Many a printery has suffered from taking in a part- 
ner who could not earn his salary, in order to get his 
cash for use. This may prove a very costly way of bor? 
rowing money. A partner investing $10,000, but draw- 
ing $1,000 more than he is worth, is getting 10 per cent, 
annual bonus on his loan, a frightful waste. 

All partnerships are questionable since the develop- 
ment of good corporation laws. If you want to take a 
man into your business, form a company, and let him 
buy stock. The company incorporating laws may not 
be perfect, but they are largely designed to take care 

391 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

of all partnership conditions, and are vastly better than 
the laws governing partnerships. 

In these days of highly refined manufacturing, the 
material wastes of a printing office — meaning paper, 
metal, etc., are well worth careful attention. In many a 
printery there are thousands of dollars' worth of metal 
lying idle, in old unused type, electros, stereos, etc. It 
does not pay to lose the use of such capital, and all use- 
less junk should be cleaned up periodically, and either 
converted into cash or usable material. To provide a 
way for utilizing dead metal, we place in our contracts 
that electros left on our hands over one year may be 
junked for our benefit. This principle may be extended 
to machinery which is mostly idle, and does not pay its 
keep. It should be sold for what it will bring, and the 
floor space used for some money-earner. 

Since paper rose in price the waste has assumed val- 
uable proportions. What used to be swept out with the 
ashes can be turned into money. A case comes to mind 
of a printer who kept account of his paper cuttings, 
waste accumulated by trimming pamphlets and maga- 
zines, and found that the work of trimming was paid 
for by the price got for the trimmed off waste. This 
of course would not be true in every printing office, or 
with all classes of work, but the fact that it is true of 
one shows that this source of economy needs to be 
watched. The printer who has considerable waste 
paper should not sell it to the first junk dealer who 
comes along, at any old price, to get it out of the way. 
He should bear in mind that gatherers of waste have 
been known to make real fortunes in some large cities, 
and hence see to it that he receives for his waste a fair 

392 



LEAKAGES, PITFALLS AND MISTAKES 

market price, which can only be done if he gets in 
touch with several junk houses. 

Print shops are usually rated as bad fire risks, and as 
a consequence high fire insurance rates prevail. It 
is not at all uncommon for the craft to have to pay two 
or three per cent, for fire insurance. This constitutes a 
very serious leak, being half the interest on the invest- 
ment, and adding a heavy drag on the plant. By keep- 
ing a printery clean, gathering up the waste paper into 
tins twice a day, being careful about the use of benzine 
(which is not half as necessary as the average pressman 
seems to think, as there are good substitutes), and by 
installing sprinklers and fire-buckets, and watching all 
details that go to make safety, the insurance rates may 
be materially lessened. When in 13th street, the Charles 
Francis Press, though located in an old-fashioned 
building, not erected on modern fireproof lines, was yet 
able to reduce its insurance rate 250 per cent, by intro- 
ducing these ideas, including a fire drill for employees. 
On several occasions the drill emptied the building in 
less than two minutes, and when a real fire alarm came, 
nobody was hurt and the damage was trifling. 

When the price of benzine went above fifteen cents a 
gallon, our firm found a substitute and cut out the 
extra insurance charge, and saved much money by 
making the change. 

Some printers neglect their presses and machinery, 
and think of repairs only when they break down. When 
the "bust" comes, and delays important work, they con- 
sider it an act of Providence, beyond human control, 
whereas it is sheer neglect. Machinery breakage is 
simply a leak that can be stopped by having a compe- 

393 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

tent machinist call in regularly and look over the ma- 
chines, overhauling them in the dull season, and making 
repairs and replacing worn parts before they break. 
In a plant aggregating twenty cylinders or its 
equivalent it is well to keep a machinist and an 
electrician on the payroll. They will easily save more 
than their wages. 

Another waste is the loss of stock, both printed and 
unprinted, by reason of lying on dirty shelves, or worse 
still on a floor where it encounters the regular sweep- 
ing. Dust tends to get in everywhere. The printer 
should take a hint from the paper jobber and keep all 
valuable paper, printed and unprinted, wrapped up and 
sealed, except when needed for immediate use. This 
is easier, simpler and more effective than keeping it in 
close closets and drawers. A neglect of such precaution 
involves losses of commonly two to fifteen per cent, 
waste from paper dirtied simply by lying around. All 
paper should be put up on skids raised about six inches 
from the floor. 

The proper care of inks and rollers prevents waste 
and loss. How often have we seen large cans of ink 
not thoroughly emptied, the residuum being left to dry 
up, involving two to five per cent, waste? How often 
the roller bill is excessive because of neglect to lift or 
wash the rollers, as experience has taught us is desir- 
able? 

Lack of order and system produces half the leaks in 
the average printing office. It is so much easier to go 
along in a happy-go-lucky fashion, and not burden one's 
mind with duties to be performed and to considering 
the best ways of doing things — in short, many people 

394 



LEAKAGES, PITFALLS AND MISTAKES 

are so downright lazy — that the little things about the 
shop are constantly neglected, and loss follows. The 
pressman should never have to wait for ink or paper, 
but without system this will occur often, and the time 
of both pressman, feeder and press will be wasted be- 
cause somebody could not get last night's poker game 
out of his mind enough to think that he should have 
ordered paper ahead, and looked out for an ink supply 
before the job was on the machine. When a job comes 
to a standstill because somebody forgot to look ahead 
and provide something, the loss is not to be charged to 
"accident," but to sheer neglect and inattention to busi- 
ness. A good system and good work insure against 
such so-called "accidents" or unfortunate "happenings." 
Printing is a business in which work passes through so 
many different hands, that system is absolutely essen- 
tial to keeping each job moving smoothly and preserv- 
ing the economies of production. 

Another common leakage in the printery grows out 
of a failure to preserve a balance of work in the office. 
Balancing an office, in my way of using the phrase, 
means proportioning the work so as to keep busy not 
only all the men but all the machines in the plant. In 
practice it is impossible to do this completely, but the 
nearer such balance is approached the less are the costs 
of production, the less "overhead" there is to eat up 
profits. This matter of balance is gone into more fully 
in the chapter on "Service, Efficiency and Specializa- 
tion." 

We all know that an office must be kept busy to 
make money, but the leakage comes in with neglecting 
to plan ahead to secure that sort of work which will fill 

395 



PRINTING FOR PROFIT 

in where the plant as a whole most needs it. Many an 
office fails to make money just because of lack of a 
broad enough vision to look for work that will keep the 
balance, and result in all the machines earning their 
money. It is bad to have to lay off a capable man be- 
cause of a dull spell and perhaps lose him for good, but 
one cannot lay off a machine that costs perhaps $2 to 
$10 a day to maintain in idleness. Money leakages are 
dealt with in the chapter on "Profitable Financing." 

It is a mistake for the proprietor of a medium or 
large printing office to do any of the routine work of 
the place. He should leave himself free to do the plan- 
ning, preserve the balance of work, look out for leaks 
and wastes, and keep all moving in harmony. Just this 
one item of harmony may mean a difference of five 
per cent, in the year's earnings. If you can keep har- 
mony with your men, with your customers, and have 
the work well balanced and moving systematically, you 
will get profits even at close prices, but I never saw the 
printer who could make money out of a shop divided 
against itself, where the men hated the boss, and the 
superintendent and foremen were jealous of each other, 
the customers suspicious, and the machinery liable to 
lie stationary. 



396 



INDEX 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Acceptance blank 186 

Accidents and happenings... 395 

Accounts, Keeping 222 

Accurate time records 245 

Acme press 45 

Adams press 43 

Addressing magazines. ....... 150 

Advantage of Printers' League 320 

Advertising 194-205 

Advertising and art printing. . 344 

Agreements, Living up to 188 

Alterations from copy 382 

America, Landing in 22 

Amer. Newspaper Publishers' 

Assn 312 

American Printer 136, 195 

Antipodes 5, 16, 27 

Appraisal 81 

Apprentices' School 74 

Arbitration agreement 324 

Arbitrations 319 

Arkansas Gazette 33, 34 

Army press (illus.) 11 

Artists in the trade 53 

Asso. Advertising Clubs 312 

Associated Press 312 

Associations, Growth of 303 

Ault & Wiborg Co 262 

Automatic machinery 220 

Automatic magazine binding. . 149 

Autopress, The 48 

Average printing office 99 

Banker, Consulting a 114 

Balance sheet 226 

Balancing a plant 273, 395 

Balancing a pressroom 258 

Beginner in business, The 76 

Ben Day process 56 

Benevolent Asso. of C. F. P.. 290 

Big Six 305 

Binding 50 

Binding machinery 277 

Binding, Purchasing 282 

Blind coDy 373 

Blue, A. L 74 

Bonner, Robert 130 



PAGE 

Bookkeeping 223 

Book composition 37 

Booklet advertising 197 

Booklets, Decorative 158 

Borden, Joseph A 88 

Borrowing money. . . . 116, 121, 126 

Bradford, Andrew 127 

Brett &i Goode 68 

Business agent of unions 318 

Business man, Printer as a 99 

Business man, successful 110 

Buyer of printing, The 169 

Buying problems 125, 273 

Campbell, Andrew 42, 43, 44 

Campbell presses 42 

Capital for printing. . 71, 104, 105 

Cash transactions 117 

Catalog printing 152 

Catalogs, Over-large 155 

Catalogs too costly 162 

Century Magazine ........... 133 

Century presses 67 

Chandler & Price press 47 

Charles Francis Press 

38, 59, 107, 143, 196, 276, 355 
Charles Francis Press, Begin- 
ning of 25 

Chasmar, A. E 70 

Chasmar & Co 25 

Cheap printing 207, 334 

Checking estimates 336, 337 

Cherouny, Henry W 315 

Chicago Inter-Ocean 22 

Chromo 54 

Circulation department of a 

magazine 142 

Circulation of magazines.... 132 

Cleveland folder 68 

Clicker System 243 

Cline, C. C. & Co 23 

Coal-tar inks 268 

Cochrane, Charles H 311 

Collection of bills 232 

Color printing 54, 55 

Color work estimating 335 

Colored inks 266 

399 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Colt's Armory press 47 

Columbian hand press 17, 28 

Combination catalogs 159 

Commercial art 56 

Commission on paper 279 

Commissions to buyers 171 

Competitor, Informing a 63 

Composing machines, Handling 241 

Composing room 40 

Composing room management. 235 

Composing room material 239 

Composing room system 243 

Conference and conciliation... 287 

Confidence 365, 368 

Conkey, W. B... 71 

Constructive! printing 10 

Contract stipulations 378 

Cooperation 365 

Copy, Following 190 

Cost congress 102, 364 

Cost-finding 91, 208 

Cost-finding blanks. 329 

"Cost Finding System" 90, 328 

Cost-system man's thought... 109 

Cost variations 327 

Cost, Working at 6 

Costs, Actual 334 

Costs, Minor 77 

Country printing plants 208 

Courier- Journal of Louisville. 23 

Courtesy 234 

Courtesy, Value of 183 

Covers, Attractive 154 

Cottrell & Babcock 44 

Cottrell press 46 

Cowper's Apostrophe 58 

Crawford, C. Frank 95 

Credit-giving 231 

Credit to customers 119 

Crippled cylinders 60 

Critic, The 60 

Curved line craze 32 

Cushing, J. S 71 

Customer, The dissatisfied. 186, 189 
Customers as advertisers. .199, 201 

Customers, Holding 182 

Customers' paper 375, 379 

Customers' property 374 

Customers, Treatment of.. 166, 186 

Customs of the trade 373 

Cut cost steel equipment 41 

400 



PAGE 

Cutting prices to get cash. . . . 122 

Cylinder press speeds 253 

Dando, J. Cliff 332 

Deacon, R. T 96 

Degener press 47 

Delivery, Efficient 346 

Depreciation 80 

DeVinne plant 43 

DeVinne Press 133 

DeVinne, Theodore L 

70, 78, 86, 311 

DeVinne's "Price List" 87 

Dexter, Talbot C 51 

Direct advertising 204 

Discounts for cash 113 

Dishonest printers 189 

Display composition charges . . . 331 

Dodge, Philip T 37 

Drum cylinder 30, 43 

Drying inks 266 

Dubuque, Iowa 22 

Dunedin, New Zealand 17, 27 

Editions, Large 9, 52 

Education of employees 292 

Efficiency 339 

Eight per cent in printing. . . . 230 

Eight vs. nine hours 316 

Electricity in paper 257 

Electros, Holding 377 

.Electrotype storage 83 

Electrotyping 49 

Electrotypes, Curved 50 

Ellis, George H 87 

Empire typesetter 37 

Employees' associations 304 

Employees hurt themselves . . . 295 
Employees, Relations with.... 286 

Employers' Associations 310 

Employing Printers' Assn. 312, 323 

Equipment, Up-to-date 72 

Errors in printing.... 77, 200, 351 

Estimates, Charging for 383 

Estimating 78, 214 

Estimating and price making. 325 

Estimating in a hurry 335 

Estimating on small work 336 

Ethical problems 362 

Failures in printing 71 

Fair profit, Insist on 255 

Fairhaven press 45 

"Feather in Our Cap" 197 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Fifty years ago 15 

Fifty Years of Printing 27 

Filigree type 31-33 

Fillers 73, 106, 254, 333 

Financing a printery 113 

Fire insurance rate-reduction. 393 

Fly-boy 29 

Folding magazines 149 

Foreman's duties 236 

Four-color difficulties 267 

Francis Press 59, 355 

Francis Press advertising 

195, 196-199 

Francis, Reginald W 69 

Frank Leslie's 129 

Franklin Association 319 

Franklin, Benjamin 127 

Franklin clubs 104, 208 

Fraser typesetter 37 

Friendship between all... 299, 361 
Friendship of customers.. 82, 177 

Friendship of employees 286 

Friends, Policy of making 65 

Gantz, Joseph 71 

Gaily Universal press 47 

Gathering machine 5H 

Globe press 47 

Godey's Magazine 130 

Goldfields, New Zealand 19 

Golding press 47 

Good will 300 

Good will of employees 361 

Gordon jobber 31, 47 

Goss press 46 

Greeley, Horace 130, 306, 308 

Growing too fast 120 

Guide Printing & Pub. Co.'. . . 24 

Hallenbeck 71 

Hand composition speed 333 

Hand press 17, 28, 43 

Handling paper cost 376 

Harmony 363, 396 

Harper plant 43 

Harper's Magazine 131 

Harris press 48 

High-priced workmen 284 

Hochstetter, Robert W 262 

Hoe press 43 

Hoe web press 68 

Honesty, Strict 102 

Hour wage scale 313 



PAGE 

Huber press 45 

Hudson Guild 74 

Human machinery 237 

Idle machinery 358 

Illustrating magazines 146 

Imposition 40, 41 

Imprint on printing 205 

Incompetent workmen 300 

Independent man, The 363 

Ink buying 173, 278 

Ink, Early prices of 30 

Ink grinding 264 

Ink manufacture 262 

Ink man's thought Ill 

Ink men reliable 261 

Ink problems 260 

Inland Printer 136, 195 

Insurance reduction 232 

Inter-Ocean, Chicago 22, 32 

Inter. P. P. & A. Union 49 

Invercargill, N. Z 15, 18 

Irresponsible partners 391 

Ives' process 54 

Job press speeds 334 

"Justice to All" 287 

Kastenbien typesetter 37 

Kelly press 48 

Knifing competitors 359 

Koenig & Bauer 44 

Labor, Hiring 283 

Labor-saving equipment 40, 41 

Lake inks 270 

Lambert-Deacon-Hull Print- 
ing Co 96 

Large printing plant 206 

Lasher & Lathrop 25, 59 

Lathrop, Percival 66 

Lathrop, Spencer 59 

League agreements 316 

Leakage in printeries 83 

Leakages and pitfalls 386 

Learning and teaching 112 

Lee, Wilson H 88 

Leslie's Magazine 53 

Linotype 37, 38 

Linotype composition 214, 326 

Linotype matter, Measuring. . 382 

Linotype metal, Billing 382 

Lithographic stone 28 

Lithography 53 

Little Rock newspapers 23 



401 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Little, Jos. J 311 

"Live and Let Live" 288 

London experience 20 

London Illustrated News 53 

Loose-leaf catalogs 157 

Louisville, Ky 23, 35 

Low prices 202 

Machine typesetting 36 

Machinery, Breaking up old . . 

105, 276 

Machinery on trial 275 

Machinery selling 173 

MacMillan typesetter 37 

Magazine, First American.... 127 

Magazine making 139 

Magazine printing 138, 143 

Magazine printing plants 137 

Magazine printing, rotary. . . . 148 

Mail order catalogs 160 

Making ready 30 

Manufacturing printing inks . . 262 

Marder, Luse & Co 89 

Marinoni press 46 

Meany, Frank 315 

Measuring linotype matter 382 

Meeting notes 100 

Meeting the payroll 120 

Melbourne memories 20 

Mergenthaler linotype 37 

Metal press-blocks 277 

Miehle press 45, 67 

Minneapolis, Minn 22 

Misrepresentation 368, 372 

Mistakes in printing 386 

Misunderstandings 184 

Modern printing development. 55 

Molleson Brothers 25, 59 

Money in presswork 254 

Money taken out of printing. . 124 

Monotype 39 

Morgan, Arthur H 322 

Moss Engraving Co 25 

Moving pictures 199 

Municipal printing plants 217 

Munsey's Magazine 136 

"My boys" 289 

National Editorial Assn 312 

New Era press 48 

New shop kinks 348 

New York Miaster Printers' 
Association 311, 382 

402 



PAGE 

New York periodicals 133 

New York printing 6, 57, 151 

Newspaper printing offices... 164 

Newspaper Pub's. Assn 312 

New Zealand printing 15 

Night shifts profitable 256 

Non-distribution system 240 

Note-meeting 100, 118 

Oakes, Augustin 61 

Office management 222 

Office style 241 

Offset press 48 

Old machinery breaking up... 105 

One customer dangerous 123 

Optimus press 45 

Order taking 18? 

Orders, Acknowledging 185 

Osterlind press 48 

Otago Punch 18, 28 

Otago, New Zealand 17 

Over-equipment 79 

Overhead charges 326, 330 

Overruns and underruns 384 

Palmer, F. W 23 

Paper buying 279 

Paper, Care of 394 

Paper commissions 279 

Paper dealer's thought Ill 

Paper- folding machine 50 

Paper-profit, Charging 83 

Paper stock handling 96 

Partnership arrangements 123, 390 

Percentage of profits 230 

Percentage on paper 83 

Periodicals in America 127 

Platemaker, The 49 

Poe, Edgar A 130 

Poor printer, The 100 

Post, Saturday Evening 127 

Potter, C, Jr 44 

Prescription for success 102 

Press-builders, Famous 44 

Press detention. 256 

Press-feeding 16 

Press manufacturer's thought. 109 

Press manning costs 250 

Press speeds 249 

Press time records 251 

Pressmen, Artistic 49 

Pressmen's school 49 

Pressmen's Union 310 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Pressroom 42 

Pressroom of a magazine 147 

Pressroom profits 247 

Pressroom records 79 

Price-making 325 

Primitive printing 19, 29 

Principle of harmony 238 

Printers' Ink 136, 196 

Printers' League contracts 317 

Printers' League principles 291 

Printers' League scale 308 

Printers' League, The 315 

Printing a magazine^. 143 

Printing as manufacturing. . . 57 

Printing Crafts Building 

68, 151, 198, 350 
Printing factory, The.... 206, 219 
Printing House Craftsmen . . . 312 

Printing in New York 6 

Printing increases 343 

Printing plants 206-221 

Printing plants, Middle-sized. 212 

Printing progress 52 

Printing schools 74 

Printing statistics 57 

Printing third U. S. industry. 8 

Private printing plants 

137, 216, 342 

Production, Actual 334 

Profit and loss 229 

Profit, Approximation of 81 

Profit balance, Estimating 225 

Profit, Definition of 11 

Profit-figuring, Poor 125 

Profit in presswork 247 

Profit-making 70, 95 

Profit statement 226 

Profitable financing 113 

Progress in printing 52 

Proofreader's sixth sense 145 

Proofreading, Particular 144 

Proprietors' salaries 84 

Prouty press 47 

Publishing vs. printing 219 

Purchasing for cash 117 

Purchasing problems 273 

Quality in advertising 203 

Rankin, John C 315 

Reciprocity 353 

Rees, Samuel 89, 325 

Restricting output . 74 



PACE 

Religious magazines 132 

Review of Reviews 140 

Rogersville, Tenn 49, 74 

Roller-maker's thought 108 

Rubber blanket 30 

Rubber-stamp salesmen 193 

Rule-twisting 31, 34 

Rush printing. 341 

Salaries of proprietors 84 

Salesmanship, Problems in... 164 

Salesmen, four types of 165 

Salesmen,, The big 175 

Salesmen's qualifications 167 

Satisfied customers 366 

Schools of Printing.... 49, 75, 329 

Scolding the printer 362 

Scott, Walter 23, 44 

Seasonal printing 347 

Second-hand material 276 

Second-hand printing plant... 101 

Secret of having money 115 

Selling ink 172 

Selling labor 170 

Selling printing 167 

Selling out a printer 122 

Service 165 

Service and Efficiency 339 

Service in magazines 345 

Seymour, R. C 46 

Shooting-stick 29 

Shop rules, Making 296 

Short count 259, 379 

Showing proofs 388 

Sixteen hours a day 16 

Small printing plants 207 

Specialists developed 349 

Specializing 106, 214, 342, 354 

Specialty printing 213, 340 

Specifications 337 

St. Paul 22 

Standardizing catalogs 161 

Standing matter charges 380 

Steel blocks 41 

Stereotyping 49 

Stern, Edward 92 

Sticking to one business 342 

Stillson, R. L 70, 94 

Stokes & Smith 48 

Stone, Edward L 94 

Storage charges 375 

Straightforward policy, The.. 103 



403 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Stuyvesant Press 25, 59 

Style corrections 191,381 

Success prescription 102 

Successful printers 86 

Suggestions to customers 192 

Taylor, A. B 44 

Taylor, Douglas 310 

Tasmania 15 

Ten hours for $9 per 298 

Ten per cent, in printing 230 

Theory of advertising 211 

Third U. S. industry 8 

Thirteenth street building 62 

Thompson press 47 

Thompson typecaster 40 

Thorne typesetter 37 

Three-color process 54 

Tickler, Daily 224 

Time records, Accurate 245 

Time value of presses 257 

Time-wasting 389 

Trade associations 303 

Trade catalog evolution 152 

Trade customs 373 

Trade journals 136, 212 

Trade prices 384 

Trading account 228 

Training men 73 

Trickery and! sharp games 358 

Tricolor printing 54 

Truth in selling 181 

Two-sheet press 68 

Typecasting 39, 40 

Type lice 30 

Typesetting by machine 37 

Type styles, Early 30 

Typographical schools 75 



PAGE 

Typographical Union 304 

Typographical Union Cards.. 314 

Typothetae 306, 310, 315 

Typothetae cost lists 101 

Underestimating a sin 103 

Unfair selling methods 178 

Uniformity in prices, Lack of 363 

Uniformity of product 73 

Uniformity of wages 292 

Union men, A hint to 294 

United Printing Mach'y Co... 46 
United States Printing Co. 215, 322 
United Typothetae and F. C. . . 90 

Unity of action 107, 244 

Universal press 47 

Vigilance 350 

Wage-earners' receipts 288 

Wage-paying weekly 385 

Wage scales 306, 308, 313 

Washington hand press 43 

Waste in paper 379 

Waste stock 97 

Wastes of material : . 392 

Wastes of time 389 

Waverly bindery 67, 342 

Weighing paper ;.. 281 

Wharf edale press 18, 44 

Whitlock press 45 

Willett, B. P 315 

Woodcuts 53 

Wilkens, John A 67, 192 

Wood & Nathan 48 

Working cards 314 

Working inks 265 

"Working" the printer... 356 

Working with not working for 238 
World industry 7 



404 



